4-02 



Garden and Forest 



[Number 503 



;■> 











Taxus cuspidata inhabits Manchuria, Corea and the Island 

 of Yezo, where it is widely scattered through the forests ol 

 deciduous-leaved trees, and where it often rises to the 

 height of fifty feet with a tall, straight stem frequently two 

 feet in diameter. In Japan this Yew is a favorite garden 

 ornament, being one of the plants most generally cut into 

 fanciful shapes, for like the other species it can bear the 

 shears. It was introduced into the eastern United States 

 in 1862 and has proved to be perfectly hardy as far north 

 at least as Boston ; it grows rapidly in cultivation and 

 promises to become here a large, long-lived tree and a really 

 important and valuable addition to the list of evergreens 

 which can be successfully cultivated in the northern states. 

 There is a dwarf compact form of this plant with short dark 

 green leaves in cultivation in this country, which probably 

 originated in Japanese gardens ; often appearing under the 

 name of Taxus brevifolia, it must not be confounded with 

 the true T brevifolia of the Pacific coasl 



I have seen in California a Yew with fastigiate, some- 

 what spreading branches, which had been imported from 

 Japan and which is evidently another garden form of Taxus 

 cuspidata. This distinct plant, however, does not appear 

 to have been tried in the eastern states. 



All the Yews can be most quickly multiplied by cuttings 

 which strike readily ; they all prefer shade and moist deep 

 soil, and they are all slow-growing and long-lived. 



All the known plants of the Yew family which succeed 

 or are likely to flourish in the north-eastern United States 

 have now been mentioned, and it will be seen that in this 

 important and widely distributed family only the Ginkgo, 

 the Japanese Yew and the dwarf Yew of the northern states 

 are really valuable and important garden plants in the 

 north-eastern states. C. S. S. 





Magnolia glauca. 



"The must part of their underwood are Hayes and suchlike." — • 

 //at/iiy/'s Voyages, vol ii. 



THE Swamp Magnolia, M. glauca, with its long coastal 

 range and numerous inland stations between Glouces- 

 ter, Massachusetts, and southern .Florida, varies from a 

 deciduous shrub at its most northern limit to an evergreen 

 tree in the extreme south. Its most common form is that 

 of a shrub from six to twenty feet high, and except for a 

 straggly habit resulting from rapidity of growth, it pos- 

 sesses almost all the points necessary for a perfect plant, 

 having extreme beauty of foliage and (lower and delicious 

 fragrance. 



The young plants generally develop several shoots that 

 remain almost vertical until the plant is well above the 

 surrounding jungle, when the branches and also the 

 leaves spread laterally. The growth is very rapid, rang- 

 ing in one season from six inches to five feet, and the 

 flowering branches develop normally three growing points, 

 of which one usually far outgrows the others. 



The thick leaves, from three to six inches long, with 

 their shining upper surface reflecting the light and the silver 

 sheen of their lower surface, are the most beautiful to be 

 found among our native plants, for their beauty is of 

 texture and is quite independent of weather, though there 

 are times and seasons when they are unusually striking. 

 These contrasted surfaces attracted the eyes of all the early 

 explorers. The extreme rapidity of growth is understood 

 when we consider the large area of leaf surface and examine 

 the tissues. The upper epidermis is very thick ; there is a 

 double and often a triple row of palisade cells, and the 

 lower epidermal cells are extended into two-celled needle- 

 pointed hairs as long as the leaf tissue is deep. Besides 

 this mat of silky fur there is wax on the lower epidermis, 

 so the leaves have immense assimilative and protective 

 powers. 



The flowers, the smallest of our native Magnolia-blos- 

 soms, are of an exquisite ivory-white from two to three 

 inches in diameter ; they are borne on short stalks with out- 

 spread foliage leaves that fall and flutter about the flowers, 



so that, except for their perfume, one might easily pass a 

 blossoming shrub without seeing any of the flowers. The 

 small fruit-cones, about two inches long, have scarlet seeds 

 pendulous from very short filaments. 



The inland stations of the Swamp Magnolia have several 

 times been noted in Garden and Forest (sec vol. vii., page 

 398, vol. viii., page 79), and the most westerly station of 

 which I know, a swamp in the South Mountain at the 

 headwaters of the Conococheague, supplied the sprays 

 photographed by Mr. George Keen, of Harrisburg, and 

 reproduced on page 403 of this issue. The South Mountain 

 Magnolias are now, owing to the invention of the 

 bicycle, in danger of extinction ; they may be invisible, 

 but their fragrance betrays them, and the man who 

 collected for me lamented the terrible breakage and 

 waste. Like all true woodsmen, he possessed that knowl- 

 edge of tree growth and gentleness of touch which enabled 

 him to gather with the least damage to the plant. 



The Magnolias of to-day are a mere survival, a remnant, 

 of that once widespread family that, so far as we know, first 

 appeared in America in the Upper Cretaceous. In Tertiary 

 times it was found in central Europe, Greenland, Arctic and 

 mid-continental America, and then was cut off in the Ice Age, 

 everywhere except in south-eastern Asia and south-eastern 

 America. In historic time the written records of Magnolia 

 begin with that first voyage to Virginia in 1 5S4, where on the 

 islands of Pamlico Sound its beauty and fragrance were 

 noted by those keen-eyed old sea-dogs, whose conciseness 

 of description is unequaled. A century later that careful ob- 

 server and judiciouscollector, the Rev. John Bannister, took 

 plants of M. glauca from Virginia to England, where they 

 were planted in the Episcopal garden at Fulham, by Henry 

 Compton, Bishop of London. Here the Magnolia found 

 an old swamp friend in the fine large tree of Red Maple, 

 taken over some thirty years earlier. About this time the 

 Rev. Cotton Mather, also busy with observations and col- 

 lections of a less pacific nature, as he was journeying from 

 Salem to Gloucester, paused in his pursuit of witches in 

 order to discover the source of an unknown fragrance, and 

 made known that farthest north colony of M. glauca that has 

 since given its name to the town of Magnolia. Exportationsof 

 Magnolia to England were continued early in the eighteenth 

 century, for Collinson in 1735 wrote to Bartram "not to 

 send any more cones of your swamp Laurel," but the 

 demand must have increased, for two years later he wrote 

 for more cones, saying "it is a fine plant, and when the 

 wind turns up the silken side of its leaves it has a pretty 

 effect." It is figured and described in Catesby's Hortus 

 Britanno-Americanus as Magnolia lauri-folia (edition of 

 1763) and mentioned as one of the American plants with 

 which ' ' England should be inriched. " The present specific 

 name, glauca, was given by Linnaeus, but the older name 

 clung for some time. When Kalm visited Pennsylvania in 

 the middle of the last century the common name was 

 Beaver Tree, owing to the fondness of those animals for 

 the succulent roots. 



This native shrub with its long historic record, and grow- 

 ing in at least twelve of the Atlantic states, like all other 

 Magnolias, is popularly supposed to be tropical, though by 

 some curious mental perversion its name is also supposed 

 to be of Indian origin. When we take the ordinary road- 

 sides of the middle states to-day, and see the unsavory 

 weeds growing by the million, there cannot too soon be 

 strenuous efforts made to replace our Jimson and Pigweeds 

 with those older and native growths of Rose and Viburnum, 

 and cover seared brooksides with Rose-Bay and Magnolia, 

 for one marked feature of all the old chroniclers is the 

 unanimity with wdiich they dwell upon the " sweetnesse 

 and goodnesse of our native plants." 



Harrisburg, Penn. 



M. L. Dock. 



The Shad-bush is leafing again by the sunny swamp side. 

 It is like a youthful or poetic thought in old age. I would not 

 tear the winter more than the Shad-bush, which puts forth 

 fresh and tender leaves on its approach. — T/ioreait. 



