412 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 504. 



less Violets, are specially adapted for close fertilization. 

 The showy Violets of spring scarcely produce any seed, 

 but depend on the underground flowers of autumn, which 

 do not open at all, but push up their well-filled seed-pods 

 direct from the earth, ripening and scattering the seed 

 thickly over the ground. From one plant of Viola cucul- 

 lata many forms of leaf and flower are produced. A few 

 years ago I took a thrifty plant of this Violet from its wild 

 home and planted it in the garden. The flowers were in- 

 tensely blue, and they disappeared without forming seeds, 

 but later the cleistogamous seeds were produced in abun- 

 dance and little plants grew all about the parent. Many 

 of these seedlings are altogether unlike the mother plant. 

 Some have deep-lobed palmate leaves, other plants have 

 smaller light-colored flowers, and there are many variations 

 in leaf and blossom from the one plain-leaved, deep blue- 

 flowered parent. As an experiment one of the seedlings 

 with strikingly deep-lobed palmate leaves was isolated, 

 and similarly varied forms resulted from the autumn seeds. 

 The other two species with cut and divided leaves, V. 

 pedata and V. pedatifida, do not have this sporting ten- 

 dency, but remain true to the parent form. The handsome 

 small white Violets, V. blanda and V. lanceolata, have 

 borne their delicate flowers this month, not as profusely as 

 in spring, but the occasional shy blossoms are particularly 

 welcome as late as this in the season. 



Polygala lutea is still in flower, as is P. sanguinea. 

 Among the Milkworts are also some species which have 

 concealed subterranean flowers as Polygala paucifolia and 

 p. polygama ; the latter species is quite abundant in the 

 Pines. In late summer it bears erect spikes of handsome 

 rose-colored flowers, as well as the hidden fruitful ones. 

 Tephrosia Virginiana is delightfully fresh and luxuriant, 

 and is now in bloom. The seeds of this plant and also 

 those of the Wild Indigo, Baptisia tinctoria, have been 

 almost wholly destroyed this season by a tiny weevil. 

 The feathery white and flesh-colored spires of Meadow- 

 sweet, Spiraea salicifolia, are still found in the damp Pines, 

 and the flowers of many of the compositae. Blue and 

 purple Asters are abundant everywhere. The Golden-rods 

 are past their prime, but good specimens of Solidago sem- 

 pervirens, our most handsome species, are still found, with 

 large thick shining leaves and fine heads with deep golden 

 rays. Coreopsis grandiflora, after a rest of several weeks, 

 has started afresh ; its deep golden rays make it the most 

 handsome of the genus, and it rivals C. lanceolata. Cone- 

 flowers and Sunflowers are still here. The narrow-leaved 

 Helianthus angustifolius, peculiar to our Pines, is full of 

 bloom, and so is Chrysopsis Mariana. The flowers of 

 Closed Gentian, Gentiana Andrewsii, as well as those of 

 G. angustifolia, with large open corollas, are among our 

 treasures in the damp Pines. But the glory of autumn is 

 the ripening foliage of tree and shrub, which is now fast 

 approaching its greatest splendor. 



Vineland, N. J. Mary Ileal. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Spiraea arbuscula. 



THIS handsome Spiniea is an alpine shrub with erect, 

 wiry, branching stems terminating in small compact 

 corymbs of bright rose-red flowers. Its affinities are with 

 Spiraea lucida, which is a larger plant with looser corymbs 

 of white or pale rose-colored flowers, and which grows at a 

 low elevation in dry woods from the Black Hills of South 

 Dakota to southern Alberta and eastern Washington, with 

 Spiraea corymbosa of the southern Alleghanies and with 

 the Siberian and eastern Asiatic Spiraea betulifolia. It 

 differs from Spiraea lucida in its dwarfer habit, in its 

 smaller and much more compact flower-clusters, in its 

 bright red stems covered with thin lustrous bark annually 

 exfoliating in thin scales, and in its smaller ovate-elliptical 

 or obovate coarsely crenulate leaves, which, like the young 

 shoots, are slightly puberulous on the lower surface at least 

 while young. 



Spiraea arbuscula * grows at Glacier, on the Selkirk 

 Mountains, in British Columbia, and ranges southward 

 along the Cascade Mountains and the high coast ranges of 

 Washington and Oregon and along the Sierra Nevada of 

 California to the centre of that range. On the Olympic 

 Mountains in Washington it forms dense low mats at the 

 timber-line at an elevation of 5,000 feet above the sea, 

 while on Mount Ranier, on the opposite side of Puget 

 Sound, it ascends 2,000 feet higher, enlivening in August 

 rocky cliffs with its brilliant flowers. 



This pretty and distinct plant (see illustration on page 413 

 of this issue) has been successfully introduced into the 

 Arnold Arboretum, where it flowered freely last June, and 

 promises to adapt itself to its new surroundings. 



c. s. s. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



Vanda ajkena. — Although described and certificated by 

 the Royal Horticultural Society as a new natural hybrid 

 between Vanda Roxburghii and V. ccerulea, I am inclined 

 to believe this is nothing more than a form of the first- 

 named species with flowers a trifle larger and clearer in color 

 than those of the type. It has exactly the leaves and habit 

 of V. Roxburghii as represented at Kew. Whether hybrid 

 or variety, however, it is a pleasing Orchid ; the flowers, 

 which are borne in racemes, are two inches across, the 

 sepals and petals checkered with yellow and dusty ferrugi- 

 nous purple, the three-lobed lip, with panduriform mid-lobe, 

 being violet-purple. V. Roxburghii is one of the com- 

 monest of Orchids in Bengal and other parts of India as 

 well as in Ceylon, and it appears to be variable as to the 

 size and color of the flowers. The ordinary form was 

 figured by Lindley in his Botanical Register, t. 506, from a 

 plant flowered in Sir Joseph Banks' garden at Spring Grove 

 in 1 819. It is said to prefer the Mango as a host-tree in 

 Bengal. The plant under notice was shown by Messrs. 

 Linden, of Brussels. 



Lelia pumila, var. Gatton Park. — Under this name a 

 distinct and beautiful form of Laelia pumila received a first- 

 class certificate last week. The type has rose-purple sepals 

 and petals and a maroon-purple lip ; the variety Dayana 

 is darker in color with a white blotch on the lip, and that 

 known as prsestans has a trumpet-shaped lip with a yellow 

 disc. There is also a form of the last pra-stans with ivory- 

 white sepals and petals and another called delicata with 

 nearly white segments. The new one differs from all these 

 in having the sepals and petals of a pale blue shade, of that 

 peculiar tint called French gray, while the color of the front 

 portion of the labellum is rich blue-purple, with a patch of 

 white in the centre. In the form of the labellum it resem- 

 bles the variety praestans. This plant came from the col- 

 lection of Mr. J. Coleman, Gatton Park, Reigate. 



Dendrobium Phauenopsis. — While our Orchid-houses are 

 now gay with the sprays of flowers of this lovely eastern 

 Orchid it is satisfactory to see that the auctioneers are 

 advertising sales of newly imported plump-bulbed plants 

 of it by the thousand. It is emphatically a plant for every 

 tropical collection. Any one who can grow Nepenthes or 

 Ixoras or Anthuriums can manage Dendrobium Phalaenop- 

 sis. Notable characteristics of this Orchid are the elegance 

 of the sprays and the large number of flowers on each 

 when the plants are strong, the variety of color and the 

 delicate blending of the colors in the individual flowers. 

 The close resemblance of the flowers to those of the beau- 

 tiful Moth-Orchids, Phalaenopsis, and the fact that these 

 flowers remain fresh twice as long, all contributes to make 

 it one of the very best Orchids in cultivation here. 



Apera arundinacea. — A first-class certificate was awarded 

 last week to a plant of this graceful Grass exhibited by 



* Spiraea arbuscula. Greene, Pittonia, ill-, 63(1895). 

 Spiraea betulifolia, var. rosea, Gray, Proc. Am. Acad., viii., 3S1 (notSpirasa 

 rosea, Rafiuesque) (1872). 



Spiraea lucida, var. rosea, Greene, Pittonia, ii., 221 (1S91). 



