1 84 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 481. 



line ; annual branchlets slender, two to three millimetres 

 thick, those on the upper branches clothed in the bearing 

 season with small yellowish, narrowly elliptical cones one 

 and a half to two inches long ; the scales thin, obovate, 

 obtuse, with scarious, wrinkled edges, the scale-bracts very 

 small, four to six millimetres long, acute ; seeds brown, 

 two to three millimetres long, with convex, obovate, shin- 

 ing wings. Forms a portion of the forests on the moun- 

 tains of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and British 

 Columbia, extremely northern and alpine forms being 

 reduced to mere shrubs. The true P. Engelmanni inhabits 

 the mountains of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico 

 and Arizona, and attains a much larger size, often exceed- 

 ing 130 feet in height, with a diameter of five feet. Bark 

 thick, brown, deeply furrowed ; lower and middle branches 

 long, making the tree fusiform in outline ; the branchlets 

 robust, three to five millimetres thick ; cones elliptical, two 

 to two and a half inches long, brownish, the scales sub- 

 rhomboid in outline, thicker and firmer than the other 

 species, the scale-bracts four to six millimetres long, trun- 

 cate or spathulate ; seeds and wings comparatively large. 



Abies Shastensis, nom nov.* — This, the Shasta Red Fir, 

 often attains a medium size, 100 to 120 feet in height, with 

 a diameter of three to four feet. Bark dark outside, red 

 within, deeply furrowed; foliage less robust than that of the 

 typical Abies magnifica ; the cones usually elliptical, with 

 more protuberant scales, the apophyses clothed with short, 

 stiff, recurved, brownish hairs ; the scale-bracts usually 

 developed to a great length, extending one-half to one inch 

 from between the scales. Headquarters around the base 

 of Mount Shasta, California, at altitudes of 5,000 to 8,000 

 feet, forming a large, dense, almost exclusive Fir forest. A 

 few trees are found on neighboring slopes of the Scott, 

 Trinity, Siskiou and the southern end of the Cascade Moun- 

 tains in Oregon. The true A. magnifica, reported originally 

 from "the high unexplored part of the Sierra Nevada to the 

 eastward of San Francisco," attains a much larger size, 

 often 250 to 300 feet high, with a diameter of eight to 

 twelve feet, its magnificent columnar trunk naked to a 

 height of 100 feet ; bark light brown outside, madder-red 

 within, deeply fissured, on the largest trees three to five 

 inches thick ; the large purple or yellowish cones are 

 almost cylindrical, truncate ; the scale-bracts undeveloped, 

 usually completely concealed. This, the Magnificent, 

 or California Red Fir, inhabits the high Sierra nearly 

 from end to end, usually mingling with other trees, rarely, 

 as in the central portions of the Sierra, it forms almost ex- 



clusive forests of exceeding grandeur. 



Oakland, Cali£. 



J. G. Lemmon. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Ribes erythrocarpum. 



THIS pretty Ribes was discovered by Dr. F. V. 

 Coville, of the Department of Agriculture, who found 

 it last August in flower in the neighborhood of Crater Lake, 

 in southern Oregon, then a virgin territory for the botanist. 

 At an elevation of about seven thousand feet above 

 the sea, it is comparatively common in the shade of noble 

 trees of Tsuga Pattonii, which here grows to its largest size 

 and forms the principal part of the forest. It was found a 

 month later with ripe fruit in the same locality by mem- 

 bers of the Forest Commission of the National Academy of 

 Sciences. 



Ribes erythrocarpumf (see illustration on page 185 of this 

 issue) is a trailing, glandular hirsute shrub with elongated, 



* Abies nobilis (Lindl.), Engelmann, Brewer & Watson, Bot. Cal., ii.. 119 {1880), in 

 part, so tar as relates to " the Red r'ir of northern California forming large forests 

 about the base of Mount Shasta." 



Abies magnifica, Murr., Sargent in Xtli U. S. Census, Forest Trees of N. A., ix., 

 914 (1884), in part. 



Abies nobilis, var. magnifica, Masters, jfoitrn. Linn. Soc., xxii., 1S9 (1SS7), in 

 part, with pi 5. 



Abies magnifica, var. Shastensis, Lemmon, in 3d Bienn. Re/>. Cal. State Bd. 

 Forestry, 145 (1890); and in 1st and 2d eds. Hand-book West Am. Cone-Bearers, 

 13 (1892) ; also in 3d (Pocket) ed. of same, 62, with pi. 1 1 (1895). 

 t Coville, Proc. Biol. Soc, Washington, x., 131 (1896). 



slender, unarmed stems rooting and producing short 

 ascending branches five or six inches in height, rugose 

 orbicular, three to five lobed, coarsely crenate leaves, erect 

 racemes of from ten to twenty flowers with glandular 

 calyx-lobes and broadly spathulate reddish petals and erect 

 subpyriform to spherical bright scarlet fruit about half an 

 inch in diameter and covered with glandular hairs. 



In the structure of its flowers Ribes erythrocarpum is 

 closely related to Ribes laxiflorum, from which it is distin- 

 guished by its prostrate stems, and glandular hairs which 

 resemble those of Ribes viscosissimum. 



The seeds of this Ribes have been sown in the Arnold 

 Arboretum, and it will probably, therefore, be possible to 

 test the value of this pretty and distinct species as a garden 

 plant. 



Plant Notes. 



Pelargoniums at Cornell University. 



THE issue of Garden and Forest for July 25th, 1894 

 stated that a prize offered the year previous by the 

 Massachusetts Horticultural Society for Pelargoniums did 

 not bring out a single entry. It will be no surprise, then, 

 to learn that of the more than 400 varieties of this beau- 

 tiful flower now in bloom in the forcing-houses of the hor- 

 ticultural department at Cornell University, very few were 

 obtained from eastern growers. The plants of the Zonal- 

 inquinans races (popularly, Zonal Geraniums, Fish Gera- 

 niums, Horseshoe Geraniums, etc. ) and the Ivy-leaved 

 Geraniums were almost all furnished by E. G. Hill & Co., 

 of Richmond, Indiana, and W. P. Simmons & Co., of Geneva, 

 Ohio, and the Show and Fancy Pelargoniums from John 

 H. Sievers, of San Francisco, while Geranium fanciers here 

 and there have added to the collection. Botanically, these 

 are all Pelargoniums, but the old name Geranium has clung 

 so persistently to three of the races, namely, the Zonal, 

 the Ivy-leaved and the Rose or Sweet-scented, that until the 

 true botanical name shall have come into general use, one 

 runs less risk of being misunderstood by following the gar- 

 deners' nomenclature. Of the varieties at Cornell, more 

 than 300 are Zonal Geraniums, some seventy are gardeners' 

 Pelargoniums (Pelargonium, section Pelargium of Harvey), 

 and 28 are of the Ivy-leaved series. 



The Ivy-leaved Geraniums are very graceful trailing 

 plants, with a bright scarlet flower, or one with tints run- 

 ning toward the light red and orange scales. The modern 

 growers show a preference for the double-flowering varie- 

 ties, following doubtless the demand of the public — a choice 

 fully justified by a comparison of the ample, well-clothed 

 modern flower with the more scantily furnished older type. 

 The ivy-like leaves, the grace of their trailing habit and the 

 pretty flowers make this variety a charming plant for the 

 hanging basket or for any spot where the trailing plant can 

 be used with advantage. 



The tradition receives an apparently unanimous assent 

 that all the hundreds, we might say thousands, of varieties 

 of Zonal Geraniums are descended from two parent races 

 — the Pelargonium inquinans and the Pelargonium zonale — 

 imported from the Cape of Good Hope and grown in Eng- 

 land as early as 1710 and 1 714 respectively. These have 

 been crossed and recrossed with each other and with their 

 descendants to such an extent that a European-cultivated 

 flower can no longer be found that represents either of the 

 parent types. A mixed race has been produced, theZonal- 

 inquinans. In 1732 there were alive in Sherard's gardens 

 at Eltham, England, six species of Pelargoniums. The 

 first edition of Le Bon Jardinier, that of 1773, pub- 

 lished at Paris, mentions but three sorts. A recent cata- 

 logue of Canned, the English grower, contains the names 

 of upwards of 700 varieties ; oneofBruant (Poitiers, France), 

 upwards of 900 ; and a little book by H. Dauchenay, pub- 

 lished this year at Paris, treating only of the Zonal-inqui- 

 nans race, contains the names of more than 3, 500 varieties, 

 many of which have, of course, disappearedfromcultivation. 



The type of Geranium best known on this side of the 



