October 24, i8S8.| 



Garden and Forest. 



413 



the acreage or number of public squares, but 

 it is safe to say that while a few of our cities 

 are well provided for, a majority are still very 

 badly off. New York is now tearing down 

 buildings to make room for public gardens. 

 Philadelphia, also, is endeavoring to make 

 up for her past carelessness. Smaller places 

 should secure the necessary lands l.iefore the 

 cost becomes intolerable. A word in con- 

 clusion as to the laying out of public squares 

 and gardens. The problem is wholly distinct 

 from that of the coiuitry-park. Here and 

 there, to be sure, is found a small public 

 ground of such strongly marked shape and 

 character that it by right rules its surround- 

 ings, whatever they may be — as the Back Bay 

 Fens in Boston call a halt to the city structures 

 — but small grounds in general are neces- 

 sarily dommated by the formal lines of the 

 streets and buildings which enclose them, and 

 they must generally be shaped to a corre- 

 spondingly formal plan. Every hope of a good 

 general effect hangs on the seciuMng of a 

 good general plan. The famous Public Gar- 

 den of Boston, recently criticised in this 

 paper, fails of fine general effect because its 

 frame-work or ground-plan was never thought 

 out as a whole — as a design. The handsome 

 and costly gardening which is to be seen there, 

 the gorgeous l)eds and the fine specimen 

 plants, cannot be fittingly displayed — can only 

 be promiscuously scattered as they are — so 

 long as the g'round-plan of the garden remains 



the mongrel thing it is. 

 Boston. C/iar/LS Eliot. 



New or Little Known Plants. 



Phlox nana.* 



THIS species presents one of the com- 

 paratively rare instances of great di- 

 versity of color in the wild state of an 

 otherwise vi^ell defined species. From the 

 readiness with which, in very many cases, 

 color-breaks are induced in cultivated 

 plants, it is very evident that color alone is 

 of no value for distinguishing species. But 

 in the ordinary course of nature, such vari- 

 ations are the e.xception, and species are in 

 general, considering their capacity for 

 change, wonderfully constant to their colors. 



The. Phlox Dnimino?idi, in its nativestate, 

 is said to be "red, varying to rose, purple 

 and white," while under cultivation the 

 range of tints has been greatly extended. 

 P. nana shows not only various shades 

 from red to white, but is remarkable in 

 being sometimes of a pure bright yellow, 

 a color not before known in the genus, 

 though occurring in Gilia and Polemonium. 

 In cultivation, therefore, there would seem 

 to be here the possibility of obtaining rare 

 combinations of colors, in what is in other 

 respects, also, a very pretty species. 



The plant is a rather low perennial, 

 loosely branching from a somewhat woody 

 base. It is a native of our dry south-western 

 territories, from western Texas to southern 

 Colorado and westward, and both purple 

 and yellow forms were collected last year 

 by Mr. C. G. Pringle in the mountains of 

 Chihuahua. S. W. 



Orchid Notes. 



Cattleya Exoniensis. — This superb hybrid was raised 

 many years ago at the Exeter Nurseries, England, and was 

 named after the city where it originated. The parents are pre- 

 sumed to be Lcelia crispa and L. purpiirata, as the habit and 



*Phlox n.\na, Nutt.; Gray's Synoptical Flora, ii, 134. 



Fig. (i(i. — PIilox nana. 



inflorescence of the plants present an intermediate character 

 between these two species. The flowers are about six inches 

 across and vary in colorfrom almost white to a delicate rose. 

 The sepals are narrow, while the petals are broad, with wavy 

 edges and somewhat twisted at point. The lip, somewhat 

 long narrow, and much crisped, is white, with the nnddle lobe 

 of the richest purple. The throat is vellow, streaked with purple. 



