6 4 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 469. 



quite applicable to the Red and Black Spruces, and his 

 further statement that " the cones of these trees were sent 

 from Virginia by Mr. Banister toward the end of the last 

 century," points to the Red Spruce, for he would hardly 

 have obtained the White Spruce from the region indicated, 

 even allowing' for the very large and indefinite Virginia of 

 those early days. 



The evidence attainable certainly seems to show that the 

 name Picea Canadensis should be transferred to the Red 

 Spruce, and that the White Spruce should be called P. laxa, 

 as proposed by Professor Sargent (Garden and Forest, 

 ii., 496.). 



Besides its peculiar odor and flavor, the White Spruce is 

 distinguished from the Red by its distinctly glaucous or 

 dusty-looking foliage and by having leaves longer and 

 generally more pointed than either the Black or Red 

 Spruces. The twigs are stout and rigid, pale greenish 

 white, and are glabrous or without the hairs which are 

 found on the other two species. The mature cones on 

 different trees may vary from an inch and a quarter 

 to two inches and a half or more in length. They 

 are slender and more or less cylindrical or finger-shaped, 

 green while growing and pale brown when ripe and 

 dry. They appear sessile on the tips of short twigs 

 and ripen early in the autumn, when the scales, sepa- 

 rate and allow the seeds to escape. The scales are quite 

 broad, and are either rounded or truncate, or even slightly 

 refuse at the apex. They are smooth, and the edges are 

 entire and not notched or eroded, although some of the 

 scales are occasionally split down the middle of the outer 

 end. They are very thin and pliant, and the whole open 

 cone is easily crushed in the hand, unlike the scales of the 

 cone of either the Red or Black Spruce, which are firm 

 and rigid and not easily crushed down after the cone is 

 dry and open. 



Growing in open places the White Spruce becomes a 

 large tree of symmetrical conical form with horizontal 

 branches from base to top. As in the case of the Colorado 

 Blue Spruce, the glaucous or " blue " character of the foliage 

 may vary considerably in different individuals, some trees 

 showing it in much greater degree than others. Rarely, 

 specimens of the Red Spruce may be found having 

 a slight glaucous hue. The leaves of all the species 

 vary greatly in length, thickness and sharpness of their 

 points according to the part of the tree upon which they 

 grow, to environment, to the age of the trees and to other 

 conditions. 



The winter buds of the White Spruce are usually of a 

 lighter brown color than those of either the Black or Red 

 Spruces, and are larger and composed of broader scales, 

 which are generally loose or flaring at the tips, while those 

 of the other two species are much darker-colored, are 

 smaller, and have narrower, more closely appressed scales, 

 so that their buds are more conical or pointed. 



While the specific differences are so confusing in the 

 early as well as some of the later literature on the Spruces, 

 the three species are well figured in the first volume of 

 Lambert's splendid monograph, which was published in 

 1803. Plate 28 shows the Red Spruce, which was figured 

 from specimens grown in England at that time, but on the 

 same plate are two " ripe cones imported from America by 

 Mr. Loddige," which seem much like those of the White 

 Spruce. The three species are also well represented in the 

 Pinelum Woburnense, published by Forbes in 1839. 



Arnold Arboretum. _/. G. Jack. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Aster junceus, Ait. 



THOUGH a rare plant in the United States, Aster jun- 

 ceus has been better understood than the related 

 A. longifolius, which was discussed in a recent number of 

 this journal (vol. ix., p. 507). In 184 1 Torrey and Gray gave 

 to a discussion of this species, then treated under A. laxi- 



folius, Nees, a full page of their Flora of North America, 

 and to-day, with additional material at hand, there is little 

 to add to their characterization of the plant. 



Like Aster longifolius, this species is of northern range, 

 but it extends farther south, to central New York, Ohio, 

 Michigan, Wisconsin and the Black Hills of South Dakota. 

 It is generally found in sphagnous swamps or on gravelly 

 shores, though it sometimes grows on drier soil. From a 

 large number of herbarium labels it would seem that A. 

 junceus has a remarkable period of bloom, from late June 

 to early September, a habit which was long kept in mind 

 by the name aestivus, applied to this plant. 



Aster junceus is ordinarily a well-marked species. The 

 smooth or slightly pubescent, or even roughish, stems are 

 very slender, growing from one-half to three feet high. 

 The thickest leaves are linear or elongate-lanceolate, attenu- 

 ate to the tip, but hardly narrowed below to the sessile 

 base ; the cauline are from two to six inches long and 

 from one and a half to four lines broad ; the floral are 

 much reduced. The leaves are, further, quite entire, or 

 sometimes a little serrulate, the margins generally being 

 recurved and strongly ciliate-scabrous. As in A. longifo- 

 lius, the branches of the inflorescence vary in length ; the 

 heads may be few or solitary on the short branches, or 

 loosely paniculate at the ends of the slender, almost naked 

 branches. The heads are about three-quarters of an inch 

 across. The involucre is three or four lines high, of about 

 three series of slightly imbricated, erect, linear or linear- 

 lanceolate bracts with acute or attenuate herbaceous tips. 

 The rays vary in color from white through pink and crim- 

 son to deep violet-blue, but commonly they are pink or 

 crimson. 



Though Aster junceus approaches A. longifolius in some 

 of its forms, it can generally be recognized by its lower 

 and more slender habit, narrower, thickish and scabrous 

 leaves, and by the shorter imbricated involucre with no 

 enlarged outer foliaceous bracts. 



Mr. Faxon's drawing (see fig. 9, p. 65) was made from 

 a specimen collected at Fort Fairfield, Maine, where, in 

 early September, with the dim purple spires of Prenanthes 

 racemosa, the creamy white stars of Parnassia and the 

 golden-yellow masses of the shrubby Cinquefoil, this Aster 

 makes of the gravelly intervales of the Aroostook River a 

 garden of delights for all botanists who have found their 

 way to that favored region. . 



Gray Herbarium, Cambridge. Merrill L. J'erjiald. 



Ipomcea Briggsii. 



THIS plant, introduced a year or two ago, has proved 

 a first-class winter-blooming climber, but so far, in 

 this neighborhood at least, it has resisted all efforts to 

 induce it to bloom out-of-doors during the summer. This 

 failure to show summer flowers is not to be regretted very 

 much since it does so much to brighten up the conservatory 

 during the dull season. Last spring I planted several 

 good-sized tubers out-of-doors in company with other 

 tuberous sorts. Ipomcea Briggsii made splendid growth, 

 but no appearance of bloom ; about the beginning of Octo- 

 ber the tubers were carefully lifted and put in pots, some 

 of the branches which had got mutilated in the operation 

 were removed, or where these were too numerous for the 

 roots to carry over after potting they were thinned out a 

 little. A sunny position was given to the plants in the 

 Begonia-house, where in a few days the shortened growths 

 freshened up. A few new shoots started out, and then 

 from the axils of the leaves the flower-buds began to show. 

 It is now three months since the first flowers opened, and 

 several flowers have expanded on each plant every day 

 since. Unlike our summer-blooming Ipomceas, which close 

 their flowers early in the day, those of I. Briggsii remain 

 open all day long. 



This species resembles Ipomcea Horsfalliae to a certain 

 extent. Its flowers, however, are smaller, and their color 

 may be called a rich magenta crimson. Next season I intend 



