September 26, 1888.] 



Garden and Forest. 



363 



claiming a place among our flowers, and the wonder is 

 how it ever came here. But it is closing its pretty, scar- 

 let flowers, telling us that rain is coming and that our 

 ramble must end. Mary Treat. 



Vineland, N. J. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



Olearia Haastii.— This New Zealand composite shrub is now 

 among the most attractive ornaments in English gardens, for 

 of late years it has been used largely in gardens, large and 

 small. A few years ago one could only see it in botanical 

 collections, but, since it has proved hardy everywhere, the 

 wholesale nurserymen have taken it in hand, and it has be- 

 come diffused throughout Great Britain. In a garden in Kent 

 I have this weelc seen enormous bushes of it completely 

 whitened with its small Daisy-like blossoms. In one case it 

 was quite seven feet high and as many across. When large it 

 is not such a compact bush as when only a yard or so high, 

 but its leggy growth can be corrected by hard pruning in 

 spring. It is a capital evergreen, and one that stands a smoky 

 atmosphere well, and is therefore much used now in town-gar- 

 dens. I do not know how many degrees of frost it will stand, 

 but during the severe cold in 1879 ^'""^^ 1880, and also last 

 year, it was imscathed with the thermometerat~|-i2°. I imagine 

 it is hardy enough to endure the winters of your Middle States. 

 Small plants are used with fine effect for lawn-beds, mixed 

 with some bright-colored plant that flowers at the same time, 

 such as Gladiolus Brenchleyensis, whose brilliant scarlet spikes 

 make a fine contrast witli the white blossom. When out of 

 bloom it reminds one of the Balearic Bo.x. 



Salvia azurea grandiflora, which goes also by the name of 6", 

 Piicheri, is one of our most useful green-house flowers in 

 summer, and is now in perfection. It is an easily grown pot- 

 plant, or it may be planted in the open border, though it is 

 liable to be winter killed sometimes. We have nothing to 

 compare with this Salvia when in perfect bloom. Its spikes of 

 bloom, of the richest azure-blue, are often si.x inches or nine 

 inches in length, and as the flowers open in succession the 

 plant is attractive for weeks. The plants may be kept from 

 year to year, but early spring-struck cuttings make fine 

 flowering plants by summer, and are more vigorous and 

 flower freer than old plants. Some very charming effects may 

 be produced in the green-house bv grouping this Blue Sage 

 with some graceful white-flowered plant, such, for instance, as 

 Francoa ramosa, which flowers at the same time. As this 

 Salvia is not mentioned in Gray's Manual, I presume it is a 

 native of Mexico, hence its tenderness. \Salvia azurea, var. 

 grandiflora, is a native of the south-western .States from 

 Mississippi to Kansas, Colorado and Te.xas. — Ed.] 



A good garden Rose is one called The Pet. It does not grow 

 more than a couple of feet high, makes a wide-spreading mass 

 of shoots, clothed with broad, deep-green foliage, and every 

 shoot terminates in a huge cluster of small white flowers, 

 which, in a bud stage and till half opened, are of a delicate 

 rose pink. It is becoming a great favorite in English gardens, 

 as it is found so useful for cutting. 



Lilium auratum is exceptionally fine this season when 

 planted in light soils. The long continuance of heavy rains 

 seems to have suited it wherever the superfluous moisture 

 could drain away quickly, but in heavy soils, even where 

 special lily-beds are prepared, it has been a failure. It is very 

 impatient of stagnant moisture at the root ; on the other hand, 

 a moist atmosphere seems to favor a strong growth. In Kew 

 Gardens, at the present time, this Lily is magnificent, inter- 

 mixed with Rliododendrons in a deep, peaty soil. In many 

 cases the stems are six feet high, as thick as a broom-handle, 

 and bear enormous heads of flowers, many of them fasciated. 

 The finest varieties, too, of L. auraiuin have showed well this 

 season. I saw, the other day at Veitch's, the splendid variety 

 named Platyphyllum, which has leaves twice as long and 

 broad as the type, and with flowers nine inches across, with a 

 broad band of gold down the middle of each petal. The variety 

 Cruentum, or, as it is often called, Rubro-vittatum, I have 

 seen very fine lately in several gardens. The broad band of 

 crimson which runs through each petal of white renders it 

 an extremely showy plant. All Lily-growers on this side, 

 by the way, are anxiously awaiting the time when Parkman's 

 Lily (Z. Parkmani), a magnificent hybrid between L. 

 aiiraHim and L. speciosum, will be obtainable by purchase. 

 When I was at tlie Knap Hill Nurseries last (Mr. Anthony 

 Waterer holds the entire stock of this Lily) I was told that 

 it would be distributed soon. The stock looks very strong 



and it seems to be a very robust grower. Your readers may 

 not all know that Parkman's Lily was raised by Mr. Francis 

 Parkman, the historian, twenty years ago. It has flowers a 

 foot across, in shape like those of L. auratum, and every 

 petal is a brilliant crimson, broadly edged with white and 

 with a gold band down the centre of each. Other Lilies 

 will be envious when this one appears. 



A Hardy Banana is an interesting novelty. It is a species 

 of Musa from Japan, growing in the open air in Messrs. Veitch's 

 nursery, and is likely to prove perfectly hardy in England, inas- 

 much as it has withstood the frosts of the past tew seasons with 

 but little or no protection. It has as large leaves as the com- 

 mon Banana, but its growth will, I think, be more like that of 

 the Abyssinian Banana {Musa Enscte). The value of a hardy,, 

 noble-leaved plant cannot be overestimated, for with it our 

 gardens, without much cost or trouble, may be made to 

 assume a sub-tropical aspect. 



London, August i8th, i8S8. 



Win. Goldrin^. 



New or Litde Known Plants. 



Deutzia parviflora. 



THE fine Deutzia of which a picture appears upon 

 page 365 of this issue, although but little known in 

 gardens, yet is by far the most beautiful of the three or 

 four species now cultivated. It is a native of northern 

 China and the Amoor country, and was sent a few years 

 ago from the St. Petersburg garden to the Arnold Arbore- 

 tum, whence it has found its way into a few of the princi- 

 pal collections of the United States. 



Deutzia parviflora is a stout shrub, with upright stems 

 four or five feet high, covered with exfoliating brownish 

 yellow bark, and sharply serrate, dark green, elliptical or 

 lanceolate leaves, which are pale and conspicuously retic- 

 ulately veined on the lower surface. The corymbs of 

 handsome white flowers appear here generally during the 

 first week of June, and are produced in the greatest pro- 

 fusion, quite covering for several feet the upper portions of 

 the stems. Ma.ximowicz, in his revision of the genus 

 Deutzia, describes nine species. They are all Asiatic, 

 three belonging to the temperate Himalaya region, two to 

 northern China (of these the large-flowered D. grandiflora 

 should be a real acquisition in gardens) and four to Japan. 

 There is a very complete analytical drawing of D. parvi- 

 flora (/. iii.. Figs. 18-32), in Waximowicz's Revision, pub- 

 lished in the tenth volume of the Memoires de I'Academie 

 des Sciences de St. Petersburg, 7"'e serie, x, and it has been 

 figured by Kegel in his ''Flora Ussuriensis " {t. v., figs. 7- 

 14) and in the Gartenflora (1862, t. 370). 



It is one of the hardiest and most desirable of the 

 Asiatic shrubs of recent introduction. C. S. S. 



T 



Cultural Department. 



The Species of Gladiolus. 

 HE genus Gladiolus, as at present defined, includes about 

 nety species. The latest authoritative review of the 



family to which the genus belongs is in the "Genera Plantarum ' 

 of Bentham and Hooker, and this difters considerably from 

 Mr. Baker's in the sixteenth volume of the "Journal of theLin- 

 nean Society," under date of 1878 ; and as we go backward 

 along the line of botanical literature we find very great variety 

 and even confusion of views as regards the genus. Spt'cies 

 of Ixia, Anomatheca, Watsonia, Acidanthera, Tritonia, Babiana, 

 etc., have l)ecn considered Gladioli by various authors, and 

 many now called Gladioli have been previously referred to 

 Homoglossum, Watsonia, Geissorhiza and other genera. 



The genus is somewhat widely dispersed. Though by far 

 the greater number of species are South African, one, G. II- 

 lyruus, strays as far to the north and west as the New Forest 

 in England, and others are found on the Mediterranean coasts 

 and islands and as far eastward as Persia and Afghanistan. A 

 few occur on the western coast of tropical Africa and a few 

 on the eastern, while three or four are indigenous to Mada- 

 gascar. 



This wideness of range indicates great dissimilarity of con- 

 stitution and requirements among the species; accordingly 

 we find some that flourish with vigor under cultivation and 

 others that die away in spite of all our pains ; some tliat will 

 endure, unprotected, the rigor of a New England winter and 



