April 21, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



157 



ticular exhale an exceedingly agreeable fragrance. Daphne 

 Indica is an old plant that has become rare in greenhouses, 

 where it was plentiful twenty years ago, though less merito- 

 rious plants occupy its place. The best specimens of this plant 

 that I have seen were planted out in a Camellia house, and re- 

 ceived precisely the same treatment as the Camellias. As a 

 pot-plant it is not always a success, as it is easily injured by 

 careless watering during the winter. 



The Indian Rhododendrons also deserve more attention. 

 Some of the species and varieties are seldom out of flower. 

 The white and pink varieties are among the most beautiful, 

 and bear large flowers, many of them fragrant. 



Rondeletia gratissima (also known as Rogiera) and R. 

 thyrsoidea both deserve a place in the cool house, since they 

 are easy to grow and quite free-blooming. These evergreen 

 shrubs bear terminal or axillary trusses of flowers, as the 

 Ixoras do. After flowering they should be cut back to keep 

 them in shape, and potted in good loam, with free drainage. 

 Chorozema cordatum should also be included in the available 

 list. It is easy to manage and decidedly attractive when in 

 flower. The long and graceful shoots are laden with pea- 

 shaped flowers of orange and red, and give a cheerful touch 

 of color to the house. This plant also should be pruned after 

 the blooming season, and is seldom troubled by insects unless 

 it is grown too warm, when it is liable to be attacked by red 

 spider. 



Holmesburg, Pa. U . H. Taplnt. 



Erythronium grandiflorum and Related Species. 



T N the Botany of California, published in 1880, Erythronium 

 ■*■ giganteum and E. grandiflorum were confused. Sereno 

 Watson, in his Revision of the American species of Erythro- 

 nium in 1891, corrected this mistake, but dealers and botanists 

 had followed the older authority so long that it has been hard 

 to overcome the error, and nearly all of the bulbs grown or 

 sold by dealers as E. grandiflorum are really E. giganteum. 



Erythronium giganteum is a strong-growing species, with 

 the flowers one to sixteen in a raceme, and the leaves richly 

 mottled in green and mahogany-brown. The flowers are 

 straw-colored, with orange centre. The true E. grandiflorum 

 has light green leaves entirely destitute of mottling, and its 

 flower is oftener solitary. In its different forms E. grandiflo- 

 rum has the widest distribution of any western species. It is 

 found in the higher Cascades in Oregon and Washington, and 

 in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon, in the Pine forests 

 of eastern Washington, in northern Idaho and thence east to 

 the Rockies and along that range to Colorado. 



I know of three forms of this species. In the higher Cascades 

 of Oregon and Washington there is an alpine form with light 

 yellow flowers. It was this form and Erythronium montanum 

 which were so beautifully represented in the recent illustra- 

 tion in Garden and Forest (see vol. ix., p. 504). In the Blue 

 Mountains in eastern Oregon is found a bright yellow form, 

 the only really yellow Erythronium. In the Pine woods of 

 eastern Washington there is a form with pure white flowers 

 with greenish yellow centres. In this the flowers are very 

 large, and the narrow segments are closely recurved. 



Erythronium montanum, an alpine species of the higher 

 peaks of the Cascades, also has unmottled leaves and^pure 

 white flowers with yellow centres. In this the leaves are 

 rounded at the base, a character which readily distinguishes 

 it. In its high mountain home the seasons are very short, and 

 it is wonderful how soon after the snow has melted its beauti- 

 ful flowers will expand, and how much cold and what hard 

 conditions such frail-appearing creations will endure. 



In the Sierra Nevada, from the north to Tulare County, there 

 is another species with unmottled leaves growing in high alti- 

 tudes. In this the leaves are a dark purplish green, and the 

 flowers borne in a crowded raceme. The flowers are white, 

 with an orange centre, and are suffused with and soon turn 

 pinkish purple. This species I have identified as Erythronium 

 purpurascens, although Mr. Watson described the latter as 

 having mottled leaves. 



These three species then are the only western Dog's-tooth 

 Violets with unmottled leaves, and, although varying consider- 

 ably in style, stamens, etc., are very much alike in habit and 

 growth. As garden plants they are not nearly as satisfac- 

 tory at Ukiah as the mottle-leaved species, perhaps because 

 I have not yet given them just the right position and shade. 

 The trouble is that they flower too soon after they come 

 through the ground and have no length of stem. I have tried 

 giving extra shade, with some improvement, but think I will 

 have to find a colder position for them. There is no trouble 

 with any other species in that regard, Again, I found that 



Erythronium montanum, following the habit in its mountain 

 home, does not come up till after it becomes too warm here 

 for its proper flowering. I have the same fault to find with 

 E. purpurascens from high altitudes, although the same spe- 

 cies from a lower altitude is now (April 1st) in flower. 



What is a fault here might prove to be a recommendation in 

 the colder climate of the eastern states or northern Europe, 

 and I am inclined to think that the true Erythronium grandi- 

 florum in its various forms would do splendidly there. 

 Uliiah, Calif. Carl Purity. 



Lilium Harrisii and the Electric Light. 



AT a recent meeting of the Horticulturists' Club of Cornell 

 University, M. G. Kains presented notes of experiments 

 with the Easter Lily. As to the effects of the electric light in 

 its cultivation, he said that the bulbs were potted the middle of 

 October, plunged in a solid bed late in December, and the 

 electric light turned on January 1st. A globeless arc lamp was 

 used. It burned from 5 p. M. until 6 a. m. for the following 

 four months. The bed was divided into three sections. The 

 first was exposed to the full glare of the naked light ; in the 

 second, the light passed through a large pane of glass which 

 cut out some of the ultra violet rays, but did not impede the 

 passage of the light ; the third section was separated from the 

 light by a black canvas curtain, which was drawn across the 

 bed each night before the lamp was lighted. When the light 

 was first turned on, the plants were of uniform development, 

 but in six weeks changes appeared in the foliage, which grad- 

 ually became more pronounced. The plants in the lighted 

 sections grew very tall and spindling, had long peduncles, 

 narrow and sallow green, very much curved leaves far apart 

 on the stems. These effects were most apparent under the 

 naked light. The plants in the unlighted section were more 

 robust ; had deep, glossy green leaves, were more stocky, less 

 subject to disease, and, on the whole, more evenly developed. 

 After the buds were formed these differences did not become 

 more pronounced, but the buds under the naked light soon 

 began to show a dark brown streak on the surface most 

 exposed to the direct rays from the lamp, and this burn 

 increased as the buds grew and expanded into blossoms. The 

 seared petals were much more curled than is ordinarily the 

 case with healthy blossoms,, and the stripes of brown were in 

 some cases a quarter of an inch wide on each ot three petals. 

 No such trouble was experienced with the plants in the light 

 which had passed through the pane of glass. The earliest 

 flowers appeared on plants in the naked light, and in this sec- 

 tion they lasted on the average nine days. Four days later the 

 plants in section two flowered, and lasted here nine and a 

 half days. The plants in the unlighted section were nine days 

 later than those in section two in coming into blossom, but the 

 flowers, though slightly smaller, lasted eleven days and were 

 more robust. The flowers in the lighted sections, like the 

 plants which bore them, were spindling, but not unsightly, 

 excepting those which were burned. 



A plant with two remarkably evenly developed stems was 

 taken from the unlighted section, and so placed that the cur- 

 tain could be drawn between them, the one stem being in the 

 unlighted section, the other among the plants behind the pane 

 of glass in section two. A second twin-stemmed plant was 

 also taken from the unlighted plot and placed in the naked 

 light, but the larger of the two stems was covered each night 

 with a tube of manilla paper to exclude the light entirely. In 

 each case the stem in the light blossomed a day before the 

 other stem. Some other plants of uniform development were 

 marked, and a part of them removed to the lighted sections, 

 the others being left in section three. The former bloomed 

 seven days before the latter, the last blossom in the former 

 group being three days earlier than the first blossom in the 

 latter group. The blossoms were perfectly healthy and lasted 

 as long as those in the unlighted section. From these experi- 

 ments it is concluded that it will probably pay commercially to 

 use electric light in cultivating Lilium Harrisii when the buds 

 are an inch long, in order to hasten their expansion, and that 

 the light must pass through glass to avoid burning the petals. 



Cornell University. ^. 



Sternbergia Fischeriana. — This is a spring-flowering species 

 of the well-known Winter Daffodil, and as it now appears in 

 the border is a noticeable flower, even though it comes in 

 Narcissus time, when yellow flowers are becoming plentiful. 

 Sternbergia Fischeriana differs from the fall-flowering S. lutea 

 in having much broader leaves, smaller flowers of the same 

 rich yellow color. The peduncles are short and the flowers 

 are borne above the leaves, which as yet are only slightly de- 



