December i, 1S97.] 



Garden and Forest. 



47 ' 



can nurserymen, who find quicker profits in growing these 

 European Pines than they do in raising the native White 

 and Red Pines, for the Austrian Pine, although it lasts 

 some time in good condition rather longer than the Scotch 

 Pine, generally succumbs to the attacks of boring insects 

 before it has lost its bushy juvenile habit, and an Austrian 

 Pine in the United States more than fifty feet high is excep- 

 tional. The more slender-leaved Corsican Pine, the typical 

 Pinus Laricio, is a handsomer tree, which has not proved 

 hardy in New England. It may be occasionally seen in 

 the middle states, but there is no evidence, however, in 

 large or old specimens that this tree will really become a 

 valuable acquisition for American plantations. 



Pinus montana, also known in its different forms as Pinus 

 Mugho, P. uncinata and P. Pumilio, is a subalpine plant of 

 the mountains of central Europe, where it grows at eleva- 

 tions between 4,000 and 7,500 feet above the sea-level. 

 Sometimes rising into a small tree, the Mountain Pine is 

 more often shrubby in habit, with many stems decumbent 

 below and erect above, forming broad clumps generally 

 five or six feet in height and densely clothed with stout, 

 rigid, dark green leaves. This plant is usually more suc- 

 cessful in the northern states than the other European 

 Pines ; very hardy and comparatively free from the attacks 

 of disease and insects, it is often useful for the decoration 

 of rocky banks and knolls. 



Of the value of the two eastern Asiatic two-leaved Pines 

 introduced into this country it is too soon to speak, as they 

 have been grown here for only twenty-five or thirty years. 

 The first of these trees, Pinus Thunbergii, the Kura-matsu 

 or Black Pine of Japan, inhabits northern China and Corea, 

 and is extensively cultivated in Japan, where it is probably 

 not indigenous. It is a tree sometimes eighty feet in height, 

 with a trunk three feet in diameter and a broad head of stout, 

 contorted and often pendulous branches, stout dark green 

 leaves not unlike those of the Austrian Pine, and conspicu- 

 ously white branch-buds. This is a favorite tree with the 

 Japanese, who plant it on sandy coast plains and along the 

 borders of their principal highroads. It is also used to 

 cover arbors and to hang over the sides of moated walls, 

 and is seen in every garden, where it is frequently dwarfed 

 and trained into fantastic shapes. Pinus Thunbergii is 

 perfectly hardy in New England. The Aka-matsu, or Red 

 Pine of Japan (Pinus densiflora), is common in the moun- 

 tain forests of the central part of the empire, and is 

 seventy or eighty feet in height, with a slender trunk cov- 

 ered with light red scaly bark and thin light green 

 leaves. Although an exceedingly picturesque and beautiful 

 tree, it is rarely used by the Japanese as an ornamental 

 plant, although it is a common inhabitant of their artificial 

 forests. This tree, which often appears in our gardens 

 under the name of Pinus Massoniana, a name which be- 

 longs to a south China species, is hardy in New England, 

 where it produces fertile cones in profusion and is already 

 beginning to assume its mature picturesque habit. So far 

 as can be judged by an experience of twenty-five years, 

 this appears to be the most promising of the two-leaved 

 Pines introduced into the eastern states from foreign 

 countries. 



Other two-leaved Pines which are perfectly hardy in the 

 northern states are Pinus Virginiana, better known, per- 

 haps, as Pinus inops, the Jersey or Scrub Pine, Pinus 

 pungens, the Table Mountain Pine, Pinus echinata (or 

 mitis) and Pinus divaricata (or Banksiana). These are all 

 eastern American species of no particular ornamental value. 

 The least attractive of them, perhaps, is Pinus Virginiana, 

 an inhabitant of the middle Atlantic states, and perfectly 

 hardy in eastern Massachusetts. Scrubby generally in ap- 

 pearance, it is a valuable tree in its ability to cover rapidly 

 sterile and worn-out soils in the middle Atlantic states. 

 Pinus pungens, usually called the Table Mountain Pine 

 from a locality where it grows in Pennsylvania, is an Appa- 

 lachian species which naturally does not grow north of 

 Pennsylvania. It is very hardy in New England, but has 

 little to recommend it as an ornamental tree but its large, 



massive, abundant cones. Pinus echinata, the short-leaved 

 Yellow Pine of the south, is one of the most valuable of all 

 timber Pines, supplying from the pineries of the upper dis- 

 tricts of the southern states, and of Arkansas immense 

 quantities of valuable lumber. It finds on the Atlantic 

 coast its most northerly home on Staten Island. New York. 

 This noble tree exists in the Arnold Arboretum, but evi- 

 dently is not yet at home here. Pinus divaricata, which is 

 the most boreal of the Pine-trees of eastern America, 

 although it attains its greatest size and beauty only in far 

 northern regions, flourishes in eastern Massachusetts, and 

 is always interesting, if not beautiful, with its short, stout, 

 falcate leaves spreading from the base, and erect cones 

 incurved to the branches. 



The Lodge Pole Pine (Pinus contorta, var. Murrayana), 

 which grows over all the mountain ranges ot the north- 

 western and central mountain regions of the continent, and 

 is the most widely distributed of the North American Pines, 

 is chiefly interesting in the power of its seeds, securely 

 guarded in tightly closed cones until fire releases them, to 

 germinate on burnt soil. Thanks to this power, the Lodge 

 Pole Pine has been able, not only to maintain itself against 

 the inroads of fire, but to increase the area of its possession 

 until it seems destined to become in the future the sole 

 inhabitant of western forests. Introduced from Colorado 

 into the Arnold Arboretum about twenty years ago, the 

 Lodge Pole Pine has proved hardy and produced its cones 

 here, but, like other dry country conifers, it suffers from 

 fungal diseases and gives no promise of permanent success. 



a s. s. 



Autumn Fruits in the Pines. 



AS autumn advances in the Pines the fruits are continu- 

 ally disclosed, and show a wealth of color only 

 equaled by the many-hued leaves of the trees and shrubs. 

 The bright scarlet-red fruit of Ilex verticillata is to be seen 

 everywhere in the low thickets, and of I. laevigata also, 

 though it is less common. The fruit of the latter species 

 ripens before that of I. verticillata, and is also larger and 

 more scattered on the limbs and twigs. The foliage is still 

 green on both species, and the showy berries are specially 

 beautiful among the leaves. The Ink Berry (I. glabra) with 

 evergreen leaves and black fruit, is abundant in all damp 

 places in the Pines. Our American Holly (I. opaca) is 

 unusually attractive this fall. The berries are not as bril- 

 liant as those of the deciduous members of the genus, but 

 the handsome foliage, which remains as long as the fruit, 

 more than compensates for the less vivid color. 



Magnolia glauca is one of our best and most abundant 

 trees. It is almost an evergreen in the Pines, and young 

 trees especially hold their leaves until late spring. Its 

 handsome cone-like red fruit has appeared all summer long 

 and still shows here and there among the large, shining 

 dark green leaves. The Flowering Dogwood, too, is yet 

 holding its clusters of bright red drupes, more attractive 

 even than its showy flowers. A wealth of Rose hips deco- 

 rate the low bushes along country roadsides and in out-of- 

 the-way places, and in the damp Pines the tall Swamp 

 Rose (Rosa Carolina) reaches above our heads and is thickly 

 set with its flattened globular fruits. One form of Pyrus 

 arbutifolia has red berries, which it still retains, and these 

 will provide winter feasts for the birds. The orange- 

 colored pods of the Bittersweet (Celastrus scandens) are 

 now opening, and disclose the bright scarlet seeds. A few 

 years ago Smilax Waited could have been seen here with 

 its red fruits, but it has disappeared from this locality 

 and its former home is now occupied by cultivated 

 plants. 



Among handsome trailing vines seen here, which bear 

 bright fruits now, is the Cranberry (Vaccinium macro- 

 carpon). Among the clean, damp sphagnum it sometimes 

 has berries of the deepest crimson, while others are light 

 red, and some are white on one side and deep pink on the 

 other. Long stems bearing this multicolored fruit are sin- 



