2l6 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 484. 



grow this Boronia. The best grower of it that I know treats 

 the plants exactly as he treats Epacris — that is, in March or 

 April he cuts them in hard, places them in a warm moist 

 house to break, repots them in a mixture of peat and sand 

 when the new growth is half an inch long, and keeps them 

 warm until July, when they are gradually inured to a lower 

 temperature and more air, and are finally placed in a cold 

 house. Grown in this way plants in five-inch pots are per- 

 fect little specimens, eighteen inches high, crowded with 

 branches which are bent over with the profusion of bright 

 rose-crimson bell-shaped flowers. In a cool house the 

 plants bloom in April and remain in flower about two 

 months. This species was introduced to Kew about fifteen 

 years ago by Miss North, who found it wild in West Aus- 

 tralia and described it as "very beautifyl, scent delicious, 

 quite unknown." 



Cypripedium spectabile, van album, a pure white-flow- 

 ered variety of the Moccasin Flower, is the most attractive 

 Orchid iu flower at Kew. It is not what is generally known 

 as the white variety, which has a tinge of rose in the seg- 

 ments, but is pure snow-white. We grow a large number 

 of plants of this Cypripedium in pots in a cold house or 

 frame and they flower in May, when they are worthy of a 

 place among the choicest of cool-house Orchids. Of course, 

 we grow it largely in the open air as well. The best ex- 

 amples of it that I have ever seen were growing in boggy 

 soil on the edge of a pond, the treatment being almost sub- 

 aquatic ; they were large, healthy clumps of stems two feet 

 high, each bearing two, a few of them three flowers. We 

 also grow them in pots for the cold house and flower them 

 in May; the Japanese Lady's-slipper, C. Japonicum, and 

 the large, handsome C. macranthum from Siberia, C. pubes- 

 cens and C. acaule also flower with us in May when grown 

 in pots. 



Cytisus Kewensis. — This is a hybrid between Cytisus 

 albus, the white Portuguese Laburnum, and C. Ardoini, a 

 yellow-flowered prostrate species from the Maritime Alps. 

 It originated in the Kew Arboretum, where there is now a 

 bed of it in flower. It promises to be a useful plant for the 

 rockery and for small gardens, as it is of dwarf, almost 

 prostrate, habit, with small hairy leaves and cream-yellow 

 flowers, resembling those of C. praecox both in size and 

 color. It is perfectly hardy. Some plants of it were shown 

 at the last meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society and 

 were much admired. C. prsecox is magnificent at Kew now, 

 two very large round masses of it in a conspicuous posi- 

 tion on a lawn being literally clouds of pale yellow flow- 

 ers. It will be remembered that this most useful hardy 

 shrub is the result of a cross between C. albus and C. 



purgans. 



London. 



W. Watson. 



New or Little-known Plants. 

 Cladothamnus pyrolsefolius. 



CLADOTHAMNUS is a genus of woody plants of north- 

 western America of the Heath family. The original 

 species, Cladothamnus pyrolcefolius,* is distinguished by 

 solitary five-petaled flowers terminal on short leafy 

 branches, or rarely axillary, anthers opening laterally for 

 about half their length with narrow, elongated, terminal 

 pores, and five or six-celled globose capsules. It is a 

 glabrous shrub with slender reddish upright stems from 

 four to ten feet tall, clothed with thin obovate lanceo- 

 late mucronulate, nearly sessile, pale green leaves from an 

 inch and a half to two inches and a half in length and 

 about half an inch in width, and flowers nearly an inch 

 across when expanded, their light reddish or pink petals, 

 which are rather longer than the acute foliaceous calyx- 

 lobes, being exceedingly evanescent. 



Cladothamnus pyrolaefolius grows along the borders of 



* Bongard, Mtm. Pkys. Math, et Nat., pt. ii. ; Acad. Sci. St. Pitershourg, ii., 37, t. 1 

 (Fl. Alaska) ('1831).— Gray, Syn. Fl. N. Am., ii., pt. i., 44, in part.— M. W. Gorman, 

 Pittonia, iii., 75. 



Tolmiea occidentalis, Hooker, Fl. Bar. Am., 11., 41 (1834). 



the upland meadows of Alaska, where it opens its handsome 

 flowers in succession during several weeks in summer. 



Professor Green has recently shown that a second spe- 

 cies of Cladothamnus, long confounded with the Alaskan 

 plant, which he describes as Cladothamnus campanulatus,f 

 inhabits the high mountains of Washington and British 

 Columbia, and differs from the type of the genus in the 

 glandular hairs on the margins of the sepals, in its cam- 

 panulate corolla with petals joined into a short tube, and 

 in the dehiscence of the anthers, which open only by large 

 terminal pores. The leaves are short-stalked and clothed 

 on the under surface of the veins and on the petals with 

 reddish hairs, and the flowers are solitary, in pairs, or in 

 threes, from lateral buds, and are borne on short hirsute 

 pedicels. 



Cladothamnus has probably not been successfully intro- 

 duced into gardens. The Alaskan species might flourish 

 in those of western Europe, although it would probably 

 not thrive in the eastern states. The other, which appears 

 to be a rare plant, might possibly grow in our gardens, 

 where the attempt to cultivate it is certainly worth making. 

 Our figure of Cladothamnus pyrolasfolius, on page 215 of 

 this issue, is from a drawing made by Mr. Faxon from a 

 specimen collected by Mr. M. W. Gorman in 1893 on the 

 woody borders of upland meadows near Short Bay, Alaska. 



c. s. s. 



Cultural Department. 



The Rock Garden in May. 



THE rock garden is never more interesting than during the 

 month of May. The Moss Pinks, forms of Phlox subulata, 

 are in the height of their beauty; compacta, pink; atropur- 

 purea, purple ; Fairy, white, tinted with rose ; Model, car- 

 mine ; The Bride, white ; and Sadie, a lovely true blue, a sport 

 from Phlox subulata nivalis. The color-contrasts obtained by 

 planting these with Iceland Poppies, bright yellow Alyssum 

 Gemoneuse, perennial Candytufts and scattered Columbine is 

 truly charming. Anchusa Barretieri is new to us and one of the 

 handsomest Alkanets we have ever grown. It is compara- 

 tively dwarf, not more than a foot and a half in height and 

 bushy and free. Like the majority of the Borageworts, to 

 which family the Alkanets belong, the flowers are deep blue. 

 Columbines (Aquilegia) in variety are an attractive feature, but 

 of late years the borers have destroyed large numbers of 

 plants, and to keep up a display of the choicer kinds losses 

 must continually be made good from our reserve garden. The 

 chrysantha x ccerulea hybrids are hardy and free, giving all 

 the shades possible between blue and yellow. Whatever may 

 be said against the natural crossing of the different types of 

 these plants, they are at least interesting, and to the unini- 

 tiated just as handsome. The distinct but commoner Aqui- 

 legia Canadensis has been improved by the infusion of alien 

 blood, so that now we have varieties with larger flowers, mostly 

 later blooming, and varied colors. The true A. Olympica, 

 blue and white, is one of the handsomest Columbines. Iris 

 verna, sweet-scented, lavender-flowered — an American spe- 

 cies — is among the prettiest of dwarf Irises. I. oxysepala is a 

 hardy Siberian kind with slender tough leaves and lilac-colored 

 flower. Centaurea montana, with heads of blue, and silvery 

 foliage, is worthy a place anywhere. Verbascumphceniceum, 

 in bloom, is curious, if not beautiful ; all its leaves are radical, 

 primrose-like, hugging the ground in a rosette, from the cen- 

 tre of which comes a leafless scape a foot or more in height, 

 with rotate flowers for the most of its length in colors varying 

 from dull purple to white. Viola cornuta, in several varieties — 

 Perfection, mauve ; Magnifica, purple, and Lutea — is contin- 

 ually in bloom. Neat-habited, healthy plants like these are 

 always pleasing. Phlox reptans and P. amcena are two rosy- 

 colored varieties, and P. divaricata comes in shades between 

 blue and white. Besides the Iceland Poppies, which we have had 

 from the opening of spring and shall have until autumn, there 

 will be a temporary display of the gorgeous oriental kinds in 

 crimson and orange tints, while Papaver rupifragum gives 

 orange-red flowers with an indescribable sheen like change- 

 able silk. About the same time the pale yellow Day Lily, 

 Hemerocallis graminea, will be in bloom. The yellow Globe 

 Flowers, Trollius, are handsome, never untidy, and continue 



t Cladothamnus campanulatus, Green, Erythea, iii., 65 (1895). 



