342 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 497. 



also maroon-colored. The flowers are borne in few-flow- 

 ered umbels, arranged in small, axillary, paniculate clus- 

 ters, which are set closely together (a panicle to every leaf) 

 along the previous year's growth of thebranchlets. Owing 

 to the arrangement of the drooping branchlets, it often 

 happens that the blossoms on a number of them are 

 crowded together in a dense mass a foot or two in diame- 

 ter, like a large swarm of bees. The individual flowers are 

 about three-quarters of an inch across, in color creamy 

 white. The seed-pods are about half an inch in length, 

 truncate-ovate, with slightly flaring mouth, so as to be 

 almost wen-shaped. The smooth bark, deciduous in thin 

 flakes, is beautifully colored in delicate tints, varying from 

 pale gray-green to lavender. Occasionally under the 

 summer sun one of these tapering shafts warms up from 

 its cool grays to a clear flesh-tint. Australian reports 

 ascribe considerable utility to the timber of E. citriodora, 

 and ornamentally this tree certainly ranks high, its general 

 appearance at once suggesting the words graceful and 

 elegant. Its flowers are borne profusely in May, June and 

 July, at which time the tree is much frequented by bees. 

 The leaves yield a volatile oil exquisitely lemon-scented. 

 This perfume is not perceptible in the fresh leaves unless 

 they are bruised, but it is gradually exhaled by drying 

 leaves, which remain aromatic long after they are quite 

 dry. Even the ashes of burned leaves retain the perfume. 

 The best specimen of this tree in the arboretum here meas- 

 ures about fifty feet in height, with a spread of eighteen 

 feet, and a girth of twenty-eight inches atone foot from the 

 ground. This is the growth of nine years from planting, 

 ten years from the seed, without irrigation. 



Eucalyptus cornuta, the "Yate" tree of south-western 

 Australia, is a tree of fairly rapid growth here, and of 

 somewhat variable habit. It often displays strong tendency 

 to divide at or near the ground, forming several stems 

 unless trimmed. It has lanceolate leaves, slightly falcate, 

 acuminate, five to seven inches long by one to one and a 

 half inches broad at the widest part, dark green on both 

 sides, shining, with a metallic lustre in sunshine. The 

 flowers have very short pedicels, so that the many-flowered 

 umbellate cluster is almost a globular head. In bud the 

 long, slender, cylindrical, curved calyx lids or caps project 

 on all sides like radiating horns, whence the specific name 

 Cornuta. When these caps fall the long stamens spread, 

 forming a pompon of a bright greenish yellow color. 

 Often the blossoms are borne in large masses, and the 

 effect is brilliant. The long, slender, projecting valves of 

 the bell-shaped seed-pods continue the horned appearance 

 to the fruit cluster. The wood of this species is highly 

 valued in its native habitat, being there considered equal 

 to the best ash. The flowers, like those of many other 

 Eucalypti, yield a quantity of nectar, which is eagerly 

 sought by bees, who visit the flowers even before the caps 

 have fallen, and doubtless often help to push them off. 

 The principal blooming season is in July and August, with 

 a secondary season following about midwinter. 



Eucalyptus cornuta, var. Lehmannii, as grown here, 

 differs a good deal from the type. It displays the same 

 tendency to divide into several stems, but is a much 

 slower-growing tree with a symmetrically spreading crown 

 of more open and scattered foliage. The leaves are oblong 

 to narrowly obovate, mucronate, two to three inches long 

 by about one inch wide, dull green on both sides, 

 coriaceous, with petioles shorter than those of the type. 

 The individual flowers are sessile, and the calyces united 

 at the base, so that the umbel becomes in this variety a 

 dense head. The horn-like calyx lids are longer, thicker, 

 and often more curved than those of E. cornuta. The 

 pompon is correspondingly larger and of a clear apple- 

 green color. The seed-pods coalesce for almost their 

 entire length, forming a spiny ball which remotely suggests 

 a diminutive hedgehog. As with the type, the curious 

 fruit clusters are long persistent on the tree, where they 

 attract no little attention from visitors to the station. 



Eucalyptus tetraptera is a dwarf species with curious 



characteristics. The leaves are borne in tufts on the ends 

 of the few branches, the old leaves dropping off as the 

 branches elongate. They are ovate-lanceolate in shape, 

 mucronate, very thick and coriaceous in texture, and dull- 

 grass-green in color on both sides. They develop slowly, 

 but when of full size are about eight inches long by two 

 inches broad, with a mucronate point three-eighths of an 

 inch in length. The midrib and petiole are thick and yel- 

 lowish green in color, like the branchlets. Only one or 

 two flowers appear at a time, and, like the leaves, they are 

 very slow in developing. The fleshy calyx tube, promi- 

 nently four-angled, green in the bud, flushes a brilliant red 

 as the flower approaches maturity. Finally the pyramidal 

 cap falls, displaying the incurved stamens with their deli- 

 cately pink filaments tipped by purplish gray anthers. The 

 seed-pods, when full grown, measure two inches in length 

 by one and a half inches in breadth to outside edge of 

 wings. They are quadrangular bell-shaped, with a pro- 

 nounced wing at each angle, and are supported by a thick, 

 flattened peduncle, bent downward. The brilliant red of 

 the young fruit fades as the pod shrivels. So far the single 

 specimen here has matured no seed. The bark is dull 

 maroon in color and is deciduous in small flakes. The 

 species probably has no value beyond its botanical pecu- 

 liarities. 

 Santa Monica, Calif. John H. Barber. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Coriaria Japonica. 



THIS handsome and interesting plant, the representa- 

 tive of a genus monotypic in its family, and composed 

 of six or seven species, natives of the Mediterranean Basin, 

 the Himalayas, northern China, Japan, New Zealand, Chili 

 and Peru, promises to become an inhabitant of our gardens, 

 as it has proved hardy in the Arnold Arboretum, where it 

 was raised in 1893 from seeds gathered by Mr. Veitch the 

 year before near Eukura, on the west coast of the central 

 island of Japan, and where this year it has produced the 

 flowers and fruit which appear in our illustration on page 

 343 of this issue. 



Coriaria Japonica* is a square-stemmed shrub which is 

 said to grow to the height of ten feet. In the Arboretum, 

 however, the arching stems are not more than two and a 

 half feet long, and plants which I saw in the garden of the 

 Forest School near Tokyo were about the same size. I never 

 encountered wild plants in Japan and they were seen 

 by my companion, Mr. Veitch, only on the excursion which 

 he made to the west coast. 



The value of Coriaria Japonica as an ornamental plant 

 is in the long racemose fruit, the showy part consisting of 

 the accrescent petals of the pistillate flowers, which, becom- 

 ing much thickened and succulent, enclose the five nutlets 

 and form a five-angled, much-flattened, berry-like fruit half 

 an inch in diameter. In describing this plant last year in The 

 Botanical Magazine (t. 7509), Sir Joseph Hooker spoke of the 

 cherry or coral-red color of the fruiting petals as its most 

 interesting feature, the mature petals of all the other species 

 being black or violet-black, his statement being enforced 

 by the figure in a Japanese work on the useful plants of 

 that country, in which the fruit is represented as bright red 

 and described as "round, red, very pretty, but poisonous." 

 Maximowicz, who has written a classical monograph of 

 the genus Coriaria, described the fruit as black, with violet 

 juice, and this character is confirmed by the plants in the 

 Arboretum, on which the fruit was bright coral-red on the 

 20th of July, when it was from a quarter to a third of an 

 inch in diameter, being then in the condition in which it 

 appears in the figure of The Botanical Magazine ; it then 

 began to enlarge rapidly, and in a few days attained its full 

 size, turning suddenly dark violet-black, the petals becom- 

 ing filled with juice which dyes purple. 



♦Coriaria Japonica, Gray, Mem. Am. Acad., n. ser., vi., 383 [On the Botany of 



Japan) (1859).— Miquel, Ann. Mas. Sot. Lugd. Bat., iii., 91 (Pro/. Ft. Jap., 255) 



Franchet & Savatier, Euuin. PL Jap., i., 93. — Maximowicz, Mt'm. Acad. Sci. St. 

 Pe'tcrsboiirg, ser. 7, xxix.. No. 3, 9, f. — Bet. Mag., cxxii., t. 7509. 



