May 12, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



183 



took frequent excursions together into the woods and fields. 

 Annual or more frequent visits were paid to the old Bar- 

 tram botanic garden — then in the possession of Colonel 

 Carr — and to other gardens in the vicinity of Philadelphia. 

 He gathered everything interesting and rare to transplant 

 until the supply from this source was exhausted, when he 

 turned his attention to Europe and entered into correspon- 

 dence with Sir William J. Hooker, director of the garden at 

 Kew. and by forwarding to that learned botanist annually 

 for many years seeds and specimens of American plants, 

 frequently obtained by long journeys and much labor, he 

 received in return new and often rare plants from various 

 parts of the world, scarcely obtainable from any other 

 source by purchase. During part of the period occupied 

 by this correspondence, Dr. Joseph Hooker, the son of Sir 

 William, made a botanical tour to the Himalaya Mountains, 

 in Asia. Seeds from that almost unexplored region, many 

 of them produced by unknown plants, were forwarded to 

 John Evans, who bestowed a great amount of care and 

 labor upon the propagation of plants from these seeds. He 

 also had a correspondent in Germany. 



The premises of John Evans afforded no suitable grounds 

 for an extensive garden specially designed for show and 

 ornament, and yet it is doubtful whether another spot of 

 the same extent contained a greater variety of plants of 

 every habit, and every plant was found in the best place for 

 its propagation and growth.* On the densely wooded 

 hillside along the mill-race, north of the dwelling, were 

 found magnificent Rhododendrons and other mountain 

 plants, natives of the Himalayas, the Rocky Mountains, 

 the Adirondacks, the Catskills and the Allegnanies, grow- 

 ing side by side in shaded seclusion, and moistened by the 

 spray from the adjacent cascade of the mill-pond. Below, 

 upon a flat on the opposite side of Ithan Creek, was an 

 arenaceous alluvial deposit. Here was found the well- 

 known "sand garden" of John Evans, and clustered within 

 it a great number of species from New Jersey and many 

 strangers from similar soil in more remote regions. The 

 arid, rocky hills were covered with Pines and other conifers. 

 The damp, shaded ravine had its Canebrake, the artificial 

 pond its odoriferous Water-lilies and other aquatics, and 

 every border and every corner were occupied by appropri- 

 ate specimens brought together from remote parts of the 

 earth. A large proportion of the labor required for the 

 care and cultivation of this great collection was performed 

 by the hands of its owner. The sawdust from his mill 

 was used extensively around the growing plants to smother 

 weeds. This soon decayed into a rich mold that promoted 

 the growth of the plant. 



The extent of the Evans collection is not accurately 

 known, as no catalogue was ever published. In the num- 

 ber of distinct species of trees and shrubs it was doubtless 

 unrivaled in his day, while in herbaceous plants it had few 

 equals. 



The garden at the present day is in a good state of 

 preservation, although many changes have been wrought 

 in the buildings and their surroundings. The mill has 

 been torn down and the house altered to suit the tastes of 

 the present owner. A splendid specimen of Cephalotaxus 

 Fortunei stands back of the house along the mill-race, 

 associated with several large Box-trees and Yews. A well- 

 grown Cryptomeria also attests to the variety of arborescent 

 species in former days. Daphne Me/.ereum is abundant as 

 an undershrub in some parts of the wooded tract, while the 

 Periwinkle (Vinca) covers the ground in many places. An 

 interesting variety of the English Ivy growing against a 

 stone wall along the driveway leading up to the house is 

 peculiar in that the terminal leaders have an upright, inde- 

 pendent habit with triangular or deltoid leaves, and pro- 

 vided abundantly with fruit. Several Magnolias on the 

 lawn are of good size. The Rhododendron thicket in the 

 woods back of the house along the mill-race is still in good 



* The garden is best reached at present by alighting from train at Rosemont, 

 Pennsylvania, on the Pennsylvania Railroad, and taking Robert's Road to Ithan 

 Creek'; the present owner is William H. Ramsey. 



preservation, although when a visit was paid to the garden 

 it was too early to judge of the botanical richness of the 

 species. Nothing remains to indicate the location of the 

 "sand garden " except one or two specimens of Yucca fila- 

 mentosa. That the garden was formerly rich in species 

 is proven by the fact that in the herbarium of the Univer- 

 sity of Pennsylvania many specimens from the garden are 

 preserved, showing the former richness of its flora fostered 

 by the hands of John Evans. 



With John Bartram and Humphrey Marshall, John Evans 

 completes a trio of self-taught botanists, all born within the 

 limits of old Chester County, Pennsylvania, and the first 

 within the present county of Delaware, which was parti- 

 tioned off from the original Chester County. They were 

 men of like tastes and were alike in their industrious and 

 frugal habits. They were all men of the strictest integrity 

 and highest moral worth, and especially were they devoted 

 students of the vegetable kingdom. Each reared his own 

 monument in the large collection of growing plants he left 

 behind him. 



University of Pennsylvania. Joll?l W. Harsllberger. 



Three West-American Conifers. 



SEVERAL so-called marked varieties of our western 

 conifers, I am convinced, are entitled to take rank as 

 species. Crowding two or more marked forms into one poly- 

 morphous group, while it emphasizes the fact that they are 

 related, gives us little other knowledge of them. We know 

 in this age of the world that all groups of plants are con- 

 nected, more or less closely, and we believe that they are 

 all derived from a few simple, primordial forms. As we 

 meet with the termini of these lines of development we find 

 them greatly diversified while also retaining vestiges of 

 kinship. We advance knowledge of these lines — these 

 genera and species — more by detecting and separating than 

 by ignoring and generalizing. 



Prevalence of the following forms over large forest areas, 

 combined with many conspicuous differences, both in 

 habitat and structure, demands, in my opinion, this long- 

 delayed recognition. 



Pinus scopulorum, nom nov.* — Rocky Mountain Yellow 

 Pine. Small trees, rarely exceeding a hundred feet in height 

 and four in diameter, spire-shaped in outline, the grayish 

 bark thinner and harder, the sapwood thicker and the cones 

 smaller, and with firmer, darker scales than in the typical 

 P. ponderosa. Foliage thinner, more inclined to be tufted 

 at the ends of the branchlets, leaves usually in threes, but 

 often in twos. 



Sparsely distributed on the high slopes and plateaus of 

 the Rocky Mountains, from British Columbia southward 

 through Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado to north- 

 ern New Mexico, and eastward to the Black Hills of North 

 Dakota and Nebraska. 



The "polymorphous" Pinus ponderosa, with headquar- 

 ters in the Sierra Nevada of California, and extending along 

 on the western ranges northward through Oregon to Wash- 

 ington, and southward through Arizona to Sonora, prob- 

 ably contains several more forms marked enough to 

 rank as species — notably the " Brown-bark Pine " (my 

 variety nigricans) — forming almost exclusively a large 

 forest on the great Colorado plateau of central Arizona and 

 New Mexico. 



Picea Columbiana, nom nov.f — Trees usually small and 

 slender, rarely exceeding seventy-five feet in height, with a 

 diameter of three feet. Bark light-colored, thin, hard and 

 flaky ; branches short, especially those on the upper half or 

 two-thirds of the trunk, rendering the tree spire-like in out- 



*Pinns ponderosa, var. scopulorum, Engelmann in Brewer & Watson Bot.Cal., 



ii., 126(1880). Sargent in Xth U. S. Census. Forest Trceso/N I., iv . 193. Lemmon 

 in 2d Bienn, Rep. Cat. State Bd. Forestry, 9S ; im .nil 2d eds., Hand-Book West- 

 American Cone-Bearers, 7 (1892); als>> in 1 (Pocket) ed. of same, 34. Coville 

 in Con. to U. S. Nat. Herb., iv., 22. 



t Picea Engelmanni, Engelm. in pari in several publications. SargentinXth U.S. 

 Census. Forest Trees oj N. A., ix., 205 (iSS.i). in the reference to trees " rare and 

 ol small size in the mountains of Montana, Oregon and Washington"; Lemmon In 

 3d Bienn, Rep, Cal, State Bd. Forestry, 1 j ;. so far as relates to the north-western 

 form. 



