148 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 477. 



eter, are formed. Several specimens are known whose stems 

 have reached their full height of over seventy feet in sixty 

 days. The first growth of canes is usually made by the middle 

 of July. All the buds that start after the middle of September 

 perish, and no more growth is made until the following July. 

 The culms in their first season stand erect with few branches 

 and with only terminal leaves. The second season they feather 

 out and become heavy with foliage, curving over gracefully 

 to all sides. During the disastrous freeze of February 8th, 

 1895, all the specimens of this Bamboo were killed to the 

 ground, but they pushed up new shoots in July, and at present 

 no trace of the frost is visible. Clumps forty to sixty, and even 

 seventy, feet high, and as much in diameter, are very pic- 

 turesque. All the stems are crowded together around the 

 root-stock, the exterior ones especially arching over to all 

 directions by the heavy weight of the dense mass of foliage. 

 In one of the larger gardens where grand masses of Bananas, 

 a great clump of Alpinia nutans, about ten feet high, immense 

 specimens of Pampas Grass, and a fine tree of the common 

 Date Palm surround it, this Bamboo is at least sixty or 

 seventy feet high, the immense culms gracefully arching over, 

 covering at least a space of a hundred feet in diameter. This 

 clump stands on low ground and near a hydrant, where it is 

 frequently watered during dry weather. The abundant, large, 

 velvety foliage of this species has a slight trace of yellow in its 

 green color, which gives it a distinct individual quality. It 

 never forms suckers at any distance from the root-stock like 

 most of the species of Phyllostachys, which become a nuisance 

 when not constantly watched and kept within bounds. 



Bambusa arundinaria, the Thorny Bamboo of India, is almost 

 as beautiful as B. vulgaris, and it grows much in the same 

 manner. As its stems are stronger they stand more erect and 

 do not arch to all sides. At a distance a small specimen looks 

 much like a gigantic Tree Fern. It is not as yet a common 

 species in the gardens, and there are only a few specimens 

 planted a few years ago that have attained a height of scarcely 

 twenty-five feet. There is a pretty specimen on my place on 

 high Pine land that is very promising. The prospects are that 

 in a few years hence this species will rival in beauty and size 

 the Bambusa vulgaris. 



Dendrocalamus strictus is an exquisite species of gigantic 

 proportions. Of late years it has been distributed over many 

 parts of the state with Bambusa arundinacea by the wide- 

 awake firm of Reasoner Brothers, of Oneco, Florida. As it 

 flourishes to perfection on high and dry Pine land it is of par- 

 ticular value. The species is difficult to propagate, and there- 

 fore it will only become more abundant in the course of time. 

 All the specimens I have seen were young plants, but in a few 

 years they will have grown into gigantic clumps. The strong 

 culms are crowded together around the root-stock, and they 

 are scarcely arching over on the sides. Like the two forego- 

 ing, this species is strictly tropical, young unprotected plants 

 having been killed outright when the mercury fell as low as 

 nineteen degrees, Fahrenheit, on February 7th and 8th, 1895. 

 It is said to be one of the mightiest Bamboos in existence, 

 reaching a height of over one hundred feet in its native coun- 

 try, India. It has not been grown long enough in Florida to 

 say with any certainty what size it will acquire. 



The most common Bamboo in the gardens of Florida is 

 Bambusa argentea and its variety, B. argentea striata (probably 

 this is B. verticillata). I have found many magnificent speci- 

 mens even in the gardens of the backwoods. The leaves of 

 the type are of a rich green, with a glaucous underside, while 

 in the variety they are prettily variegated with creamy white. 

 Specimens twenty feet high are frequently met with, and the 

 root-stock of sucia is estimated to weigh several tons. All the 

 canes are crowded together, arching over on the sides near the 

 ground. In the centre they all stand upright. The tops of 

 the stems are not furnished with masses of foliage like the 

 foregoing species ; in fact, in the upper half the foliage is 

 rather scant, the density of the plant being lower down. It is 

 a plant of great beauty, though much less ornamental and 

 refined than the foregoing species. It grows well on high dry 

 Pine land, but there its leaves are of a rather yellowish hue. 



Thamnocalamus Falconeri (Bambusa falcata), from the 

 Himalaya region, I have only seen on my own place in Orange 

 County. It is a small but exceedingly beautiful plant, rarely 

 growing more than ten or twelve feet high and as much 

 through. Its thin slender stems are densely clothed with small 

 Fern-like foliage of a beautiful light velvety green color; the 

 underside of the foliage has a glaucous hue. In my garden I 

 have also the following species : 



Phyllostachys violascens, P. Nigra, P. aurea, P. viridi-glau- 

 cescens, P. Castillanis and Arundinaria Simoni, all desirable 

 species. Though planted several years ago, they have not 



made large clumps as yet, but some of them have sent suckers 

 to all directions, so that my man has difficulty to keep them in 

 bounds. Like most Japanese plants, they appear to be per- 

 fectly at home in Florida, and they would have formed strong 

 specimens were they planted in moist rich soil. Phyllostachys 

 Nigra has jet-black stems, and Arundinaria Simoni, which 

 grows thirty feet high, is distinguished by its many fine 

 branches and dense masses of small variegated leaves. A 

 part of nay grounds near the beautiful small Lake Audubon, 

 where the soil is deep and naoist, has been set aside for a 

 Bamboo garden. Those planted out already flourish admirably. 

 There are quite a number of other beautiful tropical Bam- 

 boos which should be introduced by our enterprising nursery- 

 men. To do their best, Bamboos need much water and a very 

 deep rich soil. They need heavy fertilizing, and should be 

 mulched each year with a thick layer of stable manure. 



Milwaukee, Wis. H. Nehrling. 



Correspondence. 

 Notes from West Virginia. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — By a very natural error in punctuation I was made to 

 say in No. 476 of Garden and Forest that such plants as 

 Saponaria ocymoides, hardy Candytufts and Creeping Phloxes 

 were a naass of bloom in nay garden late in March. What I 

 meant to say was that these plants were masses of healthy 

 evergreen verdure. Even in the earliest of springs I have not 

 seen any of these plants in bloom before the middle of April, 

 and up to this time (April 8th) none of them have shown a 

 flower. We have now, however, enough early bloom to make 

 the garden bright and to repay richly all our care. The most 

 conspicuous ornaments of the home grounds at present are 

 some fruit-trees, planted for their beauty and also to screen 

 outbuildings, in which latter position they have evergreens 

 for a most effective foil and background. The first of these to 

 flower were the Hard-shell Almond-trees, which are not often 

 planted for ornament, but which are very charming when 

 used in this manner, as they have large pale pink blossoms 

 very early in the season. These were quickly followed by the 

 Nectarines and Apricots. The bloom of all these trees comes 

 before the leaves, and therefore the background of evergreen 

 foliage is necessary to bring out their full beauty. A large old 

 Plum-tree planted close to the south side of the house was two 

 days later than the Almonds in flowering. I do not know the 

 name of this Plum, which is at least twenty-five years old. It 

 bears no fruit, but at blossoming time it covers itself with deli- 

 cate bloom and tender green foliage, and it is earlier by about 

 a week than Prunus Simonii and tlae Purple-leaved Plum, now 

 just coming into flower. There is no tree like it in this neigh- 

 borhood. I have no Prunus Davidiana with which to compare 

 it in earliness of bloom. 



The dull chocolate-colored flower-sprays of the little shrub, 

 Yellow-root, Zanthorhiza apiifolia, are interesting, but neither 

 fragrant nor showy, and the plant does not seem to thrive in 

 our soil, as it does not spread or increase in size. It is asso- 

 ciated with Spice-bushes and Leatherwood in tlae shrubbery, 

 all of which bloom at the same time and suggest our native 

 copses. It is therefore well to plant them together in the 

 wilder parts of tlae home ground where these are of ample 

 size. Forsythias are now in full bloom, and are, of course, 

 tlae most conspicuous of early-flowering shrubs. 



The Japanese Weeping Cherry is expanding its flower-buds 

 of rich carmine, which develop into blossoms of a paler 

 shade. The ground around our largest Weeping Cherry, 

 which is a beautiful full-grown tree twenty feet in height and 

 of most graceful and picturesque habit of growth, is carpeted 

 with single Hyacinths, white, pink, buff and blue, naturalized 

 in the grass. It is true that Hyacinths deteriorate in size of 

 bloom when planted in this manner, nevertheless the effect of 

 this grouping about the Weeping Cherry, with its long pendent 

 branches clothed in delicate rose-color, is very good, and 

 much more to our taste than the stiff rows of double-flowering 

 Dutch Hyacinths one so often sees primly disposed on naked 

 soil in a garden-bed. 



We are now much interested in establishing a wild garden 

 for hardy Ferns and wild flowers from the cliffs of the Poto- 

 mac, which rolls past our little village, and from the neigh- 

 boring country. Expeditions to these cliffs result in adding to 

 our collection as many as eight species and varieties of Fern 

 in a single morning. We plant them in crevices of the rocks 

 and on and around stumps of trees, set in their native Mosses, 

 for almost all of these Ferns grow naturally on Moss beds that 

 cover the overhanging rocks of the river cliffs. Hepaticas 



