August 22, iS 



•] 



Garden and Forest. 



309 



each individual flower being fully three and a half to four 

 inches in diameter, and of a bright olive-brown and yellow 

 color, remaining in perfection for two or three months. It 

 enjoys a very moist and cool atmosphere, being found at a 

 very high elevation in its native habitat. Imported plants of 

 this Oncidium require very little water until new roots 

 appear, or they will decay very quickly. Good drainage, 

 with fresh sphagnum and fibrous peat, are essential to the 

 best results. A. D. 



Plant Notes. 

 The Victoria Regia. 



OUR illustration on page 308 represents the Victoria 

 tank in Miss Simpkins' garden in Yarmouth, Massa- 

 chusetts, where, under the direction of Mr. James Brydon, 

 tropical Water Lilies are grown in great variety, and with 

 greater luxuriance and success than in any private garden 

 in the United States. 



Besides the Victoria tank, which is thirty feet in diameter, 

 and heated by pipes brought from a neighboring green- 

 house, there is a large octagonal tank fifty feet across de- 

 voted to the cultivation of tropical NymphcEas, and filled 

 during the summer months with N. Devonieusis, N. Lotus,, 

 N. deniata, N. cyanea, N. Zanzibarensis, and other species 

 and varieties. Flowers of immense size are produced in 

 this tank, in which the water is kept heated to a tempera- 

 ture of not less than 80° by means of pipes brought from 

 a boiler specially devoted to this purpose, and to heating a 

 small tank-house used for keeping the Nymphaea roots 

 over winter and for propagating the rarer variefies. A 

 third and smaller tank, which is not heated, is devoted to 

 the white European Nymphaea and to the pink variety of 

 the common Eastern species, which, with the generous 

 treatment here given to it, produces flowers which are 

 nearly double the size of those found growing wild in the 

 neighboring towns of Barnstable and Sandwich. 



The Victoria Regia, which is rightly considered one of 

 the marvels of the vegetable kingdom, is too well known 

 to need any description here. It has been in cultivation 

 for more than forty years, and flowered for the first time 

 in the United States as long ago as 1853 in the garden of 

 Mr. John Fisk Allen, of Salem, Massachusetts, who exhib- 

 ited it that year at different meetings of the Massachusetts 

 Horticultural Society. 



The Victoria is found in the tributaries of the large rivers 

 of tropical America which flow into the Atlantic Ocean 

 from British Guiana to Bolivia, having flrst been detected 

 in 1 801 by Haenke in the Rio Mamore, one of the upper 

 tributaries of the Amazon, in Bolivia. 



The seed from which was produced the plant which ap- 

 pears in our illustration was planted in January last by 

 Mr. Brydon in a pail of rich soil, plunged in a small 

 green-house tank of warm water. The young plant was 

 shifted once, and early in June, having outgrown its quar- 

 ters under glass, was planted out in its present position. 

 The tank during cool days, or when there is a high wind, 

 which tears the leaves, is covered with a cotton awning 

 stretched over a frame, placed some feet above the water, 

 the sides of this temporary structure being closed with 

 tight-fitting shutters. Treated in this way, the Victoria will 

 continue to produce its leaves and flowers until the middle 

 of September, and is expected to ripen seed. 



Our illustration serves to show that the stories of the 

 wonderful supporting power of the strongly-braced leaves 

 of this plant are not without foundation. 



species. Buried at this depth it is very likely that the bulbs 

 are out of reach of frost. The plants were in leaf through- 

 out the autumn, and grew sometimes singly, often in 

 clumps, sometimes even in beds, which, at flowering 

 time, probably when the first rains come early in July, 

 must be a brilliant sight. C. G. Pringle. 



The Home of the Jacobean Lily. 



IT is with some surprise that I hear that bulbs collected 

 last autumn on the foot-hills of the Cordilleras of west- 

 ern Chihuahua, having flowered at Kew prove to be 

 Sprekelia formosissima. So near our borders ! The 

 bulbs were found about six inches deep in light brown 

 soil of ledges or rocky hills, dry situations, where 

 the plants were not crowded upon by many other 



Quisqualis Indica. — This beautiful Indian climbing plant — 

 the Rangoon Creeper — although introduced into cultivation 

 early in the century, is now rarely seen in gardens, in spite of 

 the fact that it is one of the very best of all warm green-house 

 summer-Howering climbers. It has simple, bright green, 

 strongly veined, sharply pointed leaves, four or five inches, 

 long, and axillary and terminal racemes of thirty to forty 

 flowers. Tliey have a long, slender, green, tubulous calyx, three 

 to three and one-half inches long, and a spreading corolla of 

 five petals, an inch and one-half across. The petals are pure 

 white when they first expand, turning a bright orange-red the 

 second day. As the flowers open in succession, each cluster 

 contains both white and red flowers, which contrast beautifully 

 with each otherand with the l^rilliant foliage. The flowers last 

 a long time when cut, and are admirable for decorative pur- 

 poses, especially in the evening, as tew flowers light up better 

 than those of tlie Quisqualis ; and it is remarkable that florists 

 have so long neglected this plant. It does not bloom freely 

 when the roots are confined in a pot, but when planted out in 

 a rich border with plenty of room, it will soon cover a space 

 twenty feet square, and produce bushels of flowers from June 

 until October. After the flowering pe.'iod it should be cut 

 back hard to the old wood; and as itdoes not start to grow again 

 until towards spring', it does not shade or interfere with the 

 plants placed under it in winter. It is absolutely free from 

 all insect pests. There is a second species, Q. parviflora, from 

 Natal, which is not in cultivation. 



Qitisgualis is formeil of two Latin words, qiiis, who, and 

 qualis, wliat kind, a name bestowed upon the plant because 

 Ijotanists were for some time in doubt to what family it be- 

 long'ed. It is now considered a member of the Comhreiacea 

 represented in the North American Flora by two litoral 

 trees of semi-tropical Florids, Conocarpus and Las;itncularia. 



D. 



Cleviaiis Davidiana is a free-flowering, herbaceous species 

 from northern Cliina and IVlongolia, with stems two to tin-ee feet 

 higli, large foliage and sessile axillary clusters of pale blue, 

 tubular, deliciously fragrant flowers, wliich continue to appear 

 from the ist of August until frost. They last a long time when 

 cut, and are esteemed by the few persons who know this 

 plant for indoor decoration, on account of their peculiar color 

 and for their fragrance. This, as well as two other closely 

 related autumn flowering, herbaceous Clematises, C. iuhulosa 

 and C. stans, are well worth the attention of florists with a 

 summer and autumn trade. C. 



Notes From the Arnold Arboretum. 



THE Sumachs, as tl-.e different pinnate-leaved North Ameri- 

 can species of Rhus are popularly called, are all valuable 

 ornamental plants. Rhus venenata is the first to bloom, its 

 drooping racemes of inconspicuous flowers appearing in June. 

 This is the most virulently poisonous plant found in the United 

 States. It has much beauty, however ; and the coloring of its 

 autumn foliage surpasses in brilliancy that of almost every 

 other native plant, and makes it late in the season tlie chief 

 ornament of many swamps in the Northern and Eastern States. 



The Poison Sumach is followed a few weeks later by the 

 great Stag-horn Sumach (/?. typhina), a smalt tree, widely and 

 commonly distributed through Eastern North America; and 

 one of the most ornamental of all American plants in foliage, 

 in flower and infruit.and especially in thecoloringit assumes in 

 autumn. It is not often planted in this country, for the reason, 

 perhaps, that people rarely bring into their gardens the wild 

 plants, which they see in their daily walks, but in Europe, 

 especially in Germany and in France, it is seen everywhere — 

 in city squares and parks, al)Out the railway stations, and in the 

 gardens of the rich and of the poor. And next to ubiquitous 

 Locust {Rohinia Psetidacacia), it is the American ])Iant which 

 now finds most favor in the eyes of European planters. 



The flowers of the Stag-horn Sumach are followed by those 

 of the Smooth Sumacli (R. glabra), which is blooming just 

 now. It is a handsome shrub, with smooth and glaucous 

 branches; smooth leaves, consisting of many narrow leaflets, 

 which are pale on the lower surface, and inmiense terminal 

 panicles of yellow-green flowers. It is found on rocky or 



