344 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 497. 



The bark of the old stems of Coriaria Japonica is dark 

 orange-color, lustrous and marked by numerous lenticels, 

 while on the upper side of the shoots of the season, which 

 are produced from the axils of the leaves of the previous 

 year, it is rather bright red and yellow-green on the lower 

 side. The leaves are opposite, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 

 acuminate, conspicuously three-nerved, yellow-green, and 

 from three to six inches in length. The flowers, which are 

 minute, are produced in elongated spreading racemes with 

 the branches of the year from the leaf-scars of leaves of 

 the previous year in clusters of two or three, either all 

 female, or with one raceme of male flowers among them, 

 and clothed with ovate or nearly orbicular leafy bracts, the 

 racemes bearing male flowers being more slender than the 

 others. The staminate flowers, which are borne on short 

 pedicels, are green, and are composed of five minute ovate 

 acute sepals much longer than the oblong-keeled petals, 

 and of ten stamens in two series, with slender filaments 

 which, short at first, lengthen rapidly after the flowers 

 open, becoming much exserted, and linear-oblong introrse 

 anthers inserted on the back. The pistillate flowers are 

 borne on slender pedicels which are about a third of an 

 inch long when the fruit ripens, and are subglobose, green, 

 with five ovate sepals much longer than the broadly ovate 

 imbricated petals rounded at the apex, five exserted slender 

 purple spreading styles slightly thickened toward the apex, 

 a pistil of five carpels each with a single anatropous ovule, 

 which develop into five pale brown subreniform nutlets 

 about an eighth of an inch in length, marked on the 

 sides with five prominent anastomosing ribs. C. S. S. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



London Parks and Cafes. — A movement has been started, 

 headed by several influential people, to establish in the 

 principal public parks of the metropolis, cafes of similar 

 character to those of the parks of Paris and other Conti- 

 nental towns. Presumably the London crowds cannot 

 find sufficient enjoyment in the trees, flowers and lawns of 

 our parks and public gardens, and even the bands which 

 now play on every day during the summer in most of them 

 do not contribute all that is needed to make such places 

 thoroughly attractive. I am inclined to believe that the 

 crowds do find plenty of healthy recreation in our parks as 

 they are, and that it is only the man of pleasure who now 

 wants to add the flaunting cafe or biere-hal. Of course, 

 the parks are for the people, and properly conducted re- 

 freshment halls are not out of keeping with their object, 

 but whether the midnight revels of the Bois de Boulogne 

 would be an improvement to Hyde or Regents' Park is a 

 question of considerable doubt for Englishmen, at any rate. 



Earlier Opening of Kew. — From time to time, and more 

 or less concurrently with the "big gooseberry stories," 

 an agitation is started in favor of the earlier opening to the 

 public of the Royal Gardens, Kew. The movement is 

 purely local, and has for its main object the gratification of 

 the leisured people residing near the gardens. The public 

 are at present admitted from 12 o'clock, noon, till sunset, 

 except on Sundays, when the opening hour is 1 o'clock, 

 and on bank holidays, when it is 10 o'clock. Before these 

 hours, with the exception of Sunday mornings, the gardens 

 are open only to students, artists and visitors from a long 

 distance, while to gardeners generally they are always 

 accessible. It is difficult to satisfy these agitators, who 

 look upon Kew merely as a pleasant sort of park where 

 one can smoke or read comfortably under the shade of 

 trees, that the principal object for which the gardens were 

 founded, and are still supported, is the development of 

 botanical science and the application of its resources to the 

 enrichment of the empire, and that any further concession 

 to the pleasure-seeker than those already made could only 

 be at the expense of this object. If Kew is to be placed on 



a level with Hampstead Heath or Epping Forest the time 

 of its staff will be wholly employed in looking after irre- 

 sponsible visitors. 



The Fruit Crop in England. — With the exception of a 

 few favored districts, the prospects of fruit-growers this 

 year are bad. All the plums have fared very badly, some 

 counties — Cambridge, for instance, which depends largely 

 upon Green Gages, having scarcely any. Apples and pears 

 are generally very weak. Cherries have not been so poor 

 for years. Altogether, the outlook for the English fruit 

 farmer this year is a melancholy one. We shall probably 

 learn from the county council lecturer that failure is due to 

 our bad methods of cultivation. Mr. R. D. Blackmore, 

 writing after forty years' experience in fruit-culture, at- 

 tributes this year's bad crop to the long summer drought 

 experienced last year, followed by a wet September, which 

 caused the trees to rush into a late second growth at the 

 expense of the bloom-bud, which, though formed, was 

 weak, and, consequently, when the flowers opened they 

 succumbed to the first chill. Probably an excess of im- 

 ported fruit will make up the deficiency, though what fruit 

 we have now is at almost famine prices. 



Cannas and Gladioli. — A novel and highly decorative 

 use of the small-flowered forms of Canna with Gladiolus 

 gandavensis is practised by the Parisian market-growers. 

 The Cannas are planted in the usual manner in six or eight 

 inch pots, and along with each one, two or three corms of 

 the Gladiolus are placed ; these grow with the Cannas and 

 when in flower they combine admirably with their leaves, 

 having a much better effect than even the best varieties of 

 Canna, while their cost is only about a franc per pot. For 

 the decoration of halls, cafes, restaurants, etc., they find 

 much favor with the Parisians, and to the uninitiated the 

 flowers of the Gladiolus serve just as well, probably better 

 than the best of Cannas. It may be that the " trick " is well 

 known to American market-growers, but I have never seen ■ 

 examples of it in England. It is certainly a cheap and easy 

 method of producing serviceable material for ordinary 

 decoration. A bed of common Cannas and this Gladiolus, 

 or even mixed varieties, would be effective in the flower 

 garden. 



Hemerocallis aurantiaca and its variety major. — The 

 variety has become universally popular with growers of 

 herbaceous plants, its handsome bright green leaves in bold 

 tufts and its enormous orange-yellow flowers placing it in 

 the first rank among hardy plants for prominent positions 

 in the border or flower garden. Some who have essayed 

 its cultivation have expressed themselves disappointed with 

 it, but this is no doubt because the plants are small and 

 weak consequent upon rapid and exhaustive propagation. 

 When full-grown in strong, loamy soil it is by far the hand- 

 somest of the genus. The type has remained comparatively 

 unknown ; indeed, some one lately ventured to doubt its 

 existence, in cultivation at any rate. It was, however, 

 first described by Mr. Baker in The Gardeners' Chronicle in 

 1890 from a plant in the Kew collection, where it still flour- 

 ishes and has flowered freely this year. The variety is of 

 Japanese origin and was introduced four years ago by 

 Messrs. Wallace, of Colchester. 



Calceolaria alba. — A first-class certificate was awarded 

 to this plant recently by the Royal Horticultural Society, 

 Mr. Bennett-Poe showing some beautifully grown examples 

 of it in pots. It was first brought into notice at Kew last 

 year, where it flowered profusely on a south wall all through 

 the summer, after having survived several winters without 

 protection. On the strength of this the plant was supposed 

 to be hardy, but last winter, although comparatively a mild 

 one, proved fatal to all the plants left in the open at Kew. 

 It is a native of Chili, and, therefore, likely to be happiest 

 under cold greenhouse treatment, except in warm situa- 

 tions, such, for instance, as are suitable for the Chilian 

 Desfontainea. It forms a dense shrub not unlike the com- 

 mon lavender, but softer in leaf and stem, and the flowers, 

 which are borne in the greatest profusion in axillary clus- 

 ters, are globular and pure white, resembling in effect the 



