370 



Garden and Forest. 



[September 26, 1888. 



villages and even church steeples were entirely luuied out of 

 sight. Major F. Bailey, R.E., in a recent trip to the Landes, 

 speaks of his guide tying his horse to the projectuig point of 

 one of these covered church steeples. 



The planting of these forests near the coast, together witli 

 the preliminary work necessary to establish their growth and 

 stop the rolling sands, cost the French government about 

 $40 per acre. Tracts in these forests are now rented for 

 five years, with the [irivilege of cutting selected trees and 

 tapping others for resin, at a price equaling about $70 per 

 acre. It will thus be seen that under even adverse circum- 

 stances a scientilic forest management, designed for protec- 

 tion to a country rather than for direct profit, may be made re- 

 munerative. 



Correspondence. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — The article, with illustration, in Garden and Forest, 

 July iith, assumes, not without reason, that Jiosa laevigata 

 is a foreign species, introduced and naturalized through a 

 large part of the South Atlantic and Gulf States. Neverthe- 

 less, it seems to me that, in the absence of positive proof of 

 its introduction, it is still a question whether Michau.x was not 

 correct in considering it a native. The plant was known as 

 the Cherokee Rose at least a century ago, and this fact seems 

 to indicate that it found its way into the white settlements 

 nearer the coast from the Cherokee country in upper Georgia 

 and the Carolinas. More than fifty years it was known in cul- 

 tivation at Salem, North Carolina, and vicinity, where the 

 evergreen foliage sometimes suffered from the severity of the 

 winters. The tradition there was that it had been introduced 

 from the "Cherokee Country," having been brovight by 

 Moravian missionaries of Salem, whose stations were in the 

 region which has since become famous through the battles 

 fought in the late war — Mission Ridge, Lookout Mountain, etc. 



Elliott, in his " Botany of South Carolina and Georgia," pub- 

 lished in 1821, speaks of it (as stated in the article referred to) 

 as having been cultivated in the gardens of Georgia for up- 

 wards of forty years, therefore as early as in the years of the 

 Revolutionary War. If introduced from abroad, it must have 

 been when the settlements of Georgia had scarcely reached 

 the upper country — Savannah having been founded in 1733 — 

 and it is difficult to conceive that it should have been desig- 

 nated from the first as the Cherokee Rose if it reached the 

 country through the lower settlements, and that it should 

 have become so common and well-established about one 

 hundred years ago that the careful and experienced observer, 

 Michaux, " mistook it for a native plant." Was he not right .' 



On referring to Grisebach's " Flora of the British West 

 Indian Islands," I find Rosa leevigata given (on the authority 

 of an old friend of mine) as " naturalized in Jamaica," and he 

 adds, " introduced from China and Japan." The question 

 arises. Was it not rather introduced in Colonial times from 

 Charleston or Savannah, when intercourse and trade were 

 frequent ? Although the plant flourishes luxuriantly in the 

 mountain regions, it exhibits unmistakable evidences of its 

 introduction from abroad. More than fifty years ago it could 

 be met with near houses, and usually covering stone-walls. 

 It was not regarded as a rare plant or of recent introduction, 

 the persons inquired of visually being ignorant of the way it 

 got there. In the year 1848, passing a deserted cofl'ee-planta- 

 tion in the interior of the island, among the mountains, I 

 came upon what had evidently at one time been a hedge of 

 Cherokee Rose. The plants had spread and flourished until 

 they covered a space twenty feet broad, and formed a mass 

 higher than a man's head on horseback, probal)ly outdoing 

 those in the illustration by Dr. Lanborn. The shining foliage 

 and the hundreds of pure white Roses formed a beautiful sight 

 — all the more striking and surprising because (witli the excep- 

 tion of Rubus J amaicensis) it was the only representative of 

 the order Rosaceae I had met with in a flourishing and ap- 

 parently naturalized condition. Trees that had grown up 

 spontaneously, and the deserted and decayed buildings, in- 

 dicated that cultivation had been abandoned for many years — 

 probably not less than twenty — but there was the long, straight 

 line, indicating unmistakably the original hedge. And it was 

 this hedge idea (the use to which the species is generally put 

 in the Southern States) which seemed to me, at the time, a 

 reason for thinking that the plant had been introduced direct 

 from our own country, and not from England, whence it must 

 have come, if not from the United States. 



If, in the island of Jamaica, under the most favorable con- 

 ditions, and after many years, it is unmistakably evident that 

 the plant was introduced, is it likely that in Georgia, where 



the ])lant, if introduced, could not possibly have been an in- 

 habitant longer than I found it in Jamaica, it should have out- 

 grown the evidences of its introduction so as to deceive 

 Michaux into regarding it as a native ? 



Among flowering plants, as you know, there are instances 

 of geographical distribution quite as remarkable. Looking at 

 Grisebach's work the other day, I observed, among the Or- 

 chidese, Phajus grandifolius, unmistakably a native of the 

 mountainous parts of Jamaica, also "a native of tropical 

 Asia to Hongkong." And taking up Gray's Manual, to de- 

 termine, for a young friend, the perennial herb Phrynia lep- 

 tostachya, common in our woods, we found the remark : 

 " Also in the Himalayan Mountains." 



On the whole, therefore, is it not still to be proved that 

 Rosa laviga/a is not a native of the south-eastern United 

 States, as well as of the region corresponding in climate in 

 eastern Asia ? j:- r> u ,, , 



Hope, Indiana. P- R- Jiolhind. 



[Botanists have long held the opinion that the Chero- 

 kee Rose is not an American plant. Although thoroughly 

 naturalized in some parts of the Southern States, it is not 

 found remote from actual or ancient settlements, and 

 the fact that it does not occur at all in the upper country, 

 once the home of the Cherokee Nation, must dispel the 

 belief that these Indians introduced it to the coast settle- 

 ments. The fact that it has not become as firmly estab- 

 lished in Jamaica as in the Southern States would be ac- 

 counted for by the difference in the climate of these two 

 regions, that of Jamaica even at high elevations above the 

 sea being too hot for a Chinese plant. Is it not possible 

 that a ship trading from China to Charleston, or some 

 other American port, may have brought this Rose direct 

 to this country, and that it may then have been taken to 

 Jamaica from this country? Or it may have been intro- 

 duced first into Jamaica and then brought to this country. 

 Rosa leevigala seems to have been cultivated in England, 

 however, as early as 1759. — En.] 



Recent Publications. 



Flora of the Hawaiian Islands : A description of their Phane- 

 rogams and Vascular Cryptogams, by Wm. Hillebrand, M.D. 

 New York : B. Westermann & Co. — This is a description in 

 English of the plants of the Sandwich Islands, written by a 

 German physician who resided on the islands during a period 

 of twenty years, which were principally devoted to a critical 

 study of their flora, although, having mastered the language, 

 he practiced medicine in Honolulu with great success, holding 

 besides several important offices under the Crown. The 

 Hawaiian Islands are more remote from any continent than 

 any group of similar extent; the character of their flora, there- 

 fore, and its relationship with other insular and with conti- 

 nental floras, are matters of extreme interest. As might be 

 expected, the flora of these islands, in which "a single day's 

 march will carry the traveler from the tropical heat of the 

 coast to the region of perpetual snow," or where, by crossing 

 an island, one may go from a climate with a rainfall of 180 

 inches to one of 30 inches, is rich in genera ; and from their 

 isolation especially rich in endemic species. Dr. Hillebrand 

 describes 844 species of flowering plants, distributed in 335 

 genera, and 155 vascular cryptogams in 30 genera, making 999 

 species in 365 genera. Not less than 115 species, weeds in culfi- 

 vation, escapes from gardens and accidental arrivals on the 

 shores of the islands, have become fully established since these 

 islands were discovered, and 24 species are supposed to have 

 been introduced prior to the coming of Europeans. Eight 

 hundred and sixty species, therefore, divided among 265 

 genera, or 3.25 species to one genus, are indigenous to the 

 islands. Of these 860 species not less than 653 or 75.93 per 

 cent, are endemic, 250 of these species belonging to 40 

 endemic genera. In the Hawaiian Flora are forms whose 

 relationship can be traced to the plants of the South American 

 continent, to those of Mexico and Australia, and to Polynesia. 

 The shrubby Lobeliacece, of which there are four or five en- 

 demic genera, with fifty species, some of which are trees 

 of considerable size, forming perhaps the most interesting 

 and remarkable group of plants in this flora, have their 

 nearest relatives in the South American Andes. The 

 Australian flora is represented by Acacias and Metrosideros, 

 the former quite Australian in their peculiar structure ; 

 while Cytandra, a Polynesian type, is represented on these 

 islands by thirty endemic species. The most generally 



