94 



Garden and Forest. 



| Number 472. 



fessor S. A. Forbes, of Illinois, in his Thirteenth Report, 

 page 102, but the specific name, forbesi, was not given to 

 it until 1889, when Professor Weed, of the Ohio Station, 

 vol. ii., No. o, named it in honor of Professor Forbes. 



Newark, Del. G. Harold Powell. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 



Saxifraga Stracheyi. — This plant was introduced from 

 the Himalayas fifty years ago, since when it has always 

 been grown here and there in a sheltered place on the 

 rockery, where it produces its large corymbose clusters of 

 red flowers in April or May. It also proves to be an excel- 

 lent plant for pot-culture to flower under glass in February. 

 The thick fleshy rhizomes are established in pots during 

 the summer, which is easily done, and they are kept in an 

 unheated frame till January, when they are placed in a 

 temperature of about fifty degrees in a light position. This 

 induces them to push up their flowers, and by the middle 

 of February plants in six-inch pots have from three to six 

 clusters, as large as an ordinary bunch of grapes, of rosy 

 pink flowers. The only defect they have is due to the 

 absence of leaves, which do not develop till after the flow- 

 ers have faded, but this defect is easily remedied by a little 

 arrangement. Saxifraga ligulata may be grown in the same 

 way, and it develops its leaves at the same lime as the 

 flowers ; the latter are pure white when forced. 



Spring-flowering Irises. — Given a mild winter, we have 

 Irises in bloom in the open air all through the winter. 

 Herr Max Leichtlin notes the flowering of the charming 

 little I. Histrio with him in November last. I have seen it 

 in bloom several times since Christmas, and at the last 

 meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society (February 9th) 

 it was shown in beautiful condition by Messrs. Wallace, of 

 Colchester. We have beds of I. reticulata in full flower on 

 our lawns now, and in other parts of the garden the allied 

 I. Bakeriana, I. histrioides, I. Krelagei, I. sophenensis, I. 

 Vartani and I. Kolpakowskiana have been lately or are 

 now flowering nicely. These Irises belong to the same 

 category as Snowdrops, Snowflakes, Winter Aconites, blue 

 Squills, Chionodoxas and early Crocuses in their value for 

 early spring effects. They are easily managed, they flower 

 freely, and they are of the most charming shades of blue. 

 We cannot have too many of such plants in gardens where 

 they will do in the open, and where they will not they are 

 worthy of frame culture. It is singular that our earliest 

 spring flowers are blue or white, followed by yellow. 



Crocus Susianus, better known in gardens as C. reticu- 

 latus or the Cloth of Gold Crocus, is a variable species and 

 one of the forms is decidedly distinct and beautiful among 

 the many species of spring-flowering Crocuses in bloom 

 with us now. The leaves are short, the flowers are of 

 medium size and short-stalked, and the upper or inflated 

 part of the tube is of a rich orange-yellow color, the outer 

 segments being covered with almost confluent streaks of 

 brown-purple. In dull weather the segments do not close 

 upward, as in other kinds, but they curl down and inward, 

 or revolutely, so that they are always attractive. Probably 

 this character was recognized by Haworth when he named 

 this species C. revoluta. It is a native of the hills of the 

 Crimea and of Asia Minor. This must not be confounded 

 with the common yellow or Dutch Crocus of gardens, the 

 flowers of which also are striped with brown outside, but 

 which are larger, coarser, of a different shade of yellow, 

 and they do not possess that revolute character of segment 

 so characteristic of C. Susianus. 



The Best Snowdrops. — First 1 would place Galanthus niva- 

 lis, which grows wild or naturalized in many parts of this 

 country and Ireland. It lives and multiplies among the grass 

 under deciduous trees, and is charming in modest patches in 

 the garden or when covering acres in the park or plantation. 

 The largest-flowered and most striking species, however, is 

 G. Elvvesii, with which we have been familiar for twenty 



years, and which is now grown in large quantities in all 

 good gardens. Here it will not live more than a year or 

 two in grass, but in a north border we have a large colony 

 which is as thick now as when planted three years ago. 

 Considerable variety is shown in the size and form of the 

 flowers and also in the width of the leaves of this species, 

 where it is grown by the thousand. The largest flowers I 

 have seen this year are one and a half inches long, and the 

 widest leaf an inch. Several have developed two flowers 

 on a scape. The third is G. Ikarias, introduced from Smyrna 

 in 1893, and now abundant in English collections. It has 

 broad, bright, shining green leaves and long, pointed 

 "drops," the inner segments being marked as in G. nivalis. 



Adonis Amurensis. — I noticed this Japanese species last 

 year when it flowered for the first time at Kew in February. 

 It is flowering again now and is better than it was last year, 

 the flowers being larger and of a brighter yellow. So far 

 it has proved quite hardy. The stems, which spring in a 

 dense cluster from the root-stock, are from nine inches to 

 a foot high, clothed with elegant dark green feathery leaves 

 and terminated by short-stalked Anemone-shaped flowers, 

 two inches in diameter. It is a native of Japan, where it is 

 a popular garden plant and is represented by a consider- 

 able number of varieties. 



Tulipa violacea is the first Tulip to open its flowers this 

 year. It is a dwarf species, related to T. sylvestris, about 

 six inches high, the flowers two inches long and colored 

 red-purple, with a blue-black blotch at the base of the seg- 

 ments. It is a native of Persia, from whence it was intro- 

 duced through Herr Max Leichtlin a few years ago. 



Lilium giganteum. — This stately Lily grows well along 

 with the hardy Bamboos at Kew. A plant which flowered 

 in 1895, and afterward yielded a quantity of seeds, offered 

 a good opportunity for securing a big batch of seedlings ; 

 accordingly, the seeds were sown in shallow boxes in Octo- 

 ber, and these were placed in a greenhouse where Cape 

 bulbs are grown. But the seeds did not germinate in the 

 spring as expected, and it was conjectured that a higher 

 temperature would wake them up. One of the boxes was 

 removed into a 'tropical temperature, but even here the 

 seeds showed no signs of vegetating. And now, after wait- 

 ing sixteen months, the seeds are germinating freely, those 

 in the cool being just as forward as those in heat. The 

 lesson to be deduced from this is that seeds of L. gigan- 

 teum sown as soon as ripe take over a year to germinate, 

 whether sown in a tropical or cool temperature. It takes 

 from five to seven years to grow a seedling to flowering 

 size. 



Lilium auratum. — The Japanese growers, or those who 

 are responsible for the preparation of the bulbs for export to 

 Europe, have not been successful this season with this pop- 

 ular Lily. Thousands upon thousands of the bulbs have 

 arrived here quite rotten, so that, although the consignments 

 have been greater than in any previous season, the number 

 of sound bulbs actually received has been a long way 

 below the average. Is it possible that less care is taken in 

 the cultivation and harvesting of the bulbs than used to be 

 the case, or is the fault in the packing? At any rate, the 

 failure is much deplored by would-be buyers here. Has 

 this Lily ever been tried in Bermuda ? It would, if success- 

 ful, prove a better venture than L. Harrisii even. I offer 

 the suggestion for what it is worth. England alone can 

 take hundreds of thousands of bulbs of L. auratum if the 

 price is reasonable. L. Henryi is another Lily worth farm- 

 ing on a large scale. 



National Viola Society. — The modest Pansy has risen 

 to the dignity of a Society all to itself. Mr. W. Robinson, 

 who is the President, is, no doubt, also the prime mover in 

 this very laudable effort to develop the Pansy family, or 

 rather to bring it into that prominence which, from its 

 variety, merit and adaptability, it eminently deserves. The 

 first annual meeting of the Society was held last week when 

 it was decided to repeat the exhibition held in the gardens of 

 the Royal Botanic Society, Regents Park, last year, when 

 the display ofPansies, Violas, etc., was the largest of the 



