H 



Garden and Forest. 



I Number 464. 



playground, or whatever name would be appropriate. 

 "We aim," says the committee, "at connecting the 

 memory of the Queen with something which will perma- 

 nently make a neighborhood more healthy, more agreea- 

 ble, or more interesting to live in. The exact form which 

 such a memorial would take might vary largely in different 

 places. In the metropolis and other towns there may be 

 square gardens or disused burial-grounds, or other lands, 

 which have been hitherto, by some accident, saved from 

 the builder, but which are doomed either to absorption into 

 the surrounding areas of bricks and mortar, or to waste and 

 neglect ; to recover such spots, and place them under the 

 management of the town authority, would be an invaluable 

 memorial of the Sovereign's long and beneficial rule. 

 Finally, there may be some earthwork or ruin of great in- 

 terest, or even some building of rare architectural beauty 

 or historic associations, which might be purchased and 

 devoted to some public purpose, and which would form a 

 possession of unique value for future generations." 



The Flora of British India. — The first part of this mon- 

 umental work was published in 1S72 ; the twenty-second 

 and last part was issued a few weeks ago. It is, perhaps, 

 the largest, most complex and the most valuable of all the 

 large Floras prepared at Kew, and it is mainly the work of 

 Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, who, be it remembered, is now 

 in his eightieth year. As a very large proportion of pop- 

 ular garden plants, particularly Orchids, are included in 

 this .Hora, it has a special interest for horticulturists. The 

 descriptions, which are in English, are clear and concise, 

 so that one has little difficulty in identifying plants by their 

 means; the synonymy, references to figures, etc., are 

 exhaustive (one might say of synonyms that they are often 

 exhausting in their number). The whole work is in seven 

 volumes. It is not a work for the ordinary library, but 

 as a book of reference it has great value for the botanical 

 cultivator and writer. Such plants as Rhododendrons, Ferns, 

 Orchids, Palms, Bamboos, Liliums, Aroids, Begonias, 

 Ixoras, Hoyas, Primulas, Gentians, Acanthads, Ficus, Quer- 

 cus and Scitamineae (Hedychium, Musa, etc.), are very 

 largely represented in the regions comprised within the 

 area termed British India. That vast and varied stretch of 

 country known as the Himalaya has yielded more good 

 garden plants, perhaps, than any other similar region in 

 the world, not even excepting South Africa, for while the 

 Ericas, Proteas and many bulbous plants which used to be 

 grown in English gardens are now never seen, except in 

 horticultural picture-books, the Himalayan Rhododendrons, 

 Dendrobiums, Primulas and hosts of other things are grow- 

 ing in popularity. The Orchid grower alone owes a large 

 proportion of the most beautiful and useful of his favorites 

 to British India. 



The Sugar Question. — The sugar-growing industry in 

 the West Indies is threatened with ruin from the crushing 

 competition of beet-sugar. The British Government has, 

 therefore, appointed a Commission to inquire into the con- 

 dition and prospects of the islands affected, with a view to 

 helping the planters and others concerned. The Commis- 

 sioners are Sir Henry W. Norman, Sir Edward Grey and 

 Sir David Barbour, and Dr. Daniel Morris, Assistant Direc- 

 tor at Kew, has been appointed to accompany the Com- 

 mission as expert adviser in agricultural and botanical 

 questions. Dr. Morris's experience in Ceylon, the West 

 Indies and Kew specially qualifies him for work of 

 this kind. Kew initiated a policy for the development 

 of the economic resources of the West Indies more than 

 twenty years ago, and the fact that Jamaica entered with 

 spirit into this movement, no doubt, accounts for the 

 better condition of things in that island compared with 

 others. 



Messrs. J. Veitch & Sons. — The famous nursery and seed 

 business known all over the world as " Veitclvs '' is follow- 

 ing the example of many other large commercial houses 

 and will shortly be floated as a limited liability company. 

 Mr. Harry Veitch will act as Director-Chairman, and his 

 nephew, Mr. James H. Veitch, will be managing director. 



Mr. R. Warner died on December 17th last in his eighty- 

 third year. He has held a prominent place among the 

 leading amateur Orchid growers for about fifty years. The 

 late Mr. B. S. Williams, the Holloway nurseryman, was 

 once upon a time Mr. Warner's gardener. The Orchid 

 Album was the joint production of Messrs. R. Warner and 

 B. S. Williams, and I believe Mr. Warner assisted in the 

 production of Williams' Orchid Grower's Manual. His Select 

 On hidaceoiis Plants is held in high esteem. His garden at 

 Chelmsford was famous for the large, well-grown speci- 

 mens of Orchids, especially Cattleyas, produced in it. He 

 was also a keen grower of hardy fruits. English horticul- 

 ture can ill afford to lose such men. 



London. ». W alson. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Aster tardiflorus, L. 



IN a recent paper* I have discussed the history of this 

 species, showing how, through lack of familiarity with 

 the plant and through a desire to find something American 

 to which we could attach its name, many forms of com- 

 mon New England species have been passing as Aster 

 tardiflorus. On the other hand, most of the American 

 material of true A. tardiflorus has been called A. patulus, 

 Lam. That the two species are identical there can be no 

 doubt. They were both described from specimens intro- 

 duced into European gardens from north-eastern America, 

 and as A. tardiflorus was published by Linnasus twenty 

 years before Lamarck described A. patulus, the Linnaean 

 name should be reserved for the plant. 



Aster tardiflorus is not generally a common plant. It is 

 found in its greatest development, perhaps, in the valleys 

 of the White Mountains, whence the Messrs. Faxon annually 

 bring many puzzling, but interesting, forms. The plant is 

 generally, though locally, distributed through Maine and 

 western New Brunswick, and it has been collected at a 

 number of points in Vermont. Two extreme stations 

 occur in Massachusetts, but west of New England the 

 occurrence of the species is not yet clearly known. 



Like most of our other New England Asters, A. tardi- 

 florus shows a strong tendency to intergrade with a large 

 number of species. The specimens examined both in the 

 herbarium and in the field pass by various degrees of modi- 

 fication to A. Novi-Belgii, A. longifolius, A. puniceus, A. 

 Lindleyanus and A. prenanthoides, yet the typical plant 

 will hardly be confused with any of these. Mr. Faxon's 

 drawing (seep. 15) shows the typical form of the plant. In 

 fact, it may be taken as the best available representative of 

 the species, for the drawing is made from specimens which 

 were cultivated at Kew in 18S1 as A. patulus, and which, 

 after comparison in the Linnaean herbarium, • Dr. Gray 

 marked, "This would answer quite to the flowering speci- 

 men in herb. Linn, of A. tardiflorus." 



The species is not always so smooth as represented in 

 the drawing, but it passes gradually from the glabrous 

 plant to a form in central Maine and the White Mountains, 

 with the stems and the midribs beneath densely white- 

 villous. A form in Maine and eastern Massachusetts hav- 

 ing elongated and narrow leaves with stout and scattered 

 salient teeth and a very contracted inflorescence is the var. 

 lancifolius, Fernald. Another striking form which has 

 been described at some length in the article previously 

 cited is what may be a hybrid between Aster puniceus and 

 A. tardiflorus, var. lancifolius. The plant is striking and 

 unique, with its puniceus like stem, short, dense inflores- 

 cence of showy heads, and leaves intermediate in outline 

 between the two supposed parents. This plant has been 

 found in some abundance at several places in eastern Mass- 

 achusetts the past autumn, and further study is necessary 

 before its true affinity can be determined. 



Gray Herbarium, Cambridge, Mass. Merrill L. Fernald. 



