498 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 512. 



caterpillar might mean the Fall Web-Worm, an insect of 

 very different habits and appearance. Other popular sub- 

 jects arranged for the juvenile mind are on the Common 

 Potato Beetle, the May Beetles or June Bugs, and Cabbage- 

 worms. It is a question whether the Ant-lion, the Lace- 

 wing Fly, or the work of the larva of a Syrphus fly among 

 plant lice are sufficiently well-known subjects to treat in a 

 book or booklet of this kind, when so many more conspic- 

 uous or cosmopolitan species are available. The history 

 of the Dobson, although interesting, is a subject likely to 

 be practically understood by a select few who have oppor- 

 tunities for observation in particular localities. In this class 

 is most likely to be the fisherman or boy who frequents 

 the shores of some rocky brook or river ; and he may 

 wonder why the adult Dobson should be called a " Hell- 

 gramite," a name quite as heavy for the young mind to 

 carry as Clisiocampa for the tent-caterpillar. 



Each chapter, however, cannot fail to interest every true 

 observer of animate nature who may be taking first lessons 

 in the wide field which opens before those who enter the 

 domain of Entomology. The pages are well illustrated 

 by numerous original or borrowed figures and the typog- 

 raphy is large and clear. 



Notes. 



The venerable Box-trees in the Barlram Garden, in west 

 Philadelphia, which are probably 150 years old, and now about 

 twenty-five feet high, are still in perfect health and beauty, 

 and show the permanency of this European and Asiatic tree 

 in the Atlantic states, where of late years, at any rate, it has 

 been too generally overlooked by gardeners. Every one 

 knows the value of the dwarf Box for the edgings of garden 

 beds, but it seems less generally known that all of the numer- 

 ous arborescent forms of Buxus sempervirens are hardy, even 

 in New England. There is something very homelike in the 

 Box and its pleasant odor, even to Americans, who generally 

 know it only in old gardens or in foreign lands, and there is 

 no plant which we can use here safely which is such a cheer- 

 ful winter inmate of northern gardens ; and no other broad- 

 leaved evergreen we can plant grows equally well in the shade 

 of other trees and in the full light of the sun. Most beautiful 

 when it is allowed to grow naturally into a rather open- 

 branched small bushy tree, the Box is also well suited for 

 formal gardening and bears wonderfully well an annual short- 

 ening of the branches, which changes the open-headed tree 

 into a dense ball or pyramid which, once formed, can be kept 

 indefinitely in shape. 



The berries of Cissus Ampelopsis of the middle and southern 

 states are most remarkable as well as beautiful in color, clear 

 pink, purple, rich blue, and an almost emerald green occur- 

 ring in the same cluster. The botanies describe them as 

 bluish, bluish or greenish, etc. They much resemble those 

 of the Chinese species, often cultivated in this country for its 

 beautifully colored fruit, and are not less beautiful, but while 

 in the latter the prevailing color is a rich Nile blue verging 

 to emerald green, purple and pink shades, especially the 

 latter being exceptional, the reverse is true with the Ameri- 

 can species, in which a delicate lilac-pink is the predominating 

 hue. Like the blue berries of Cornus circinata, the berries of 

 this vine, which in the forest completely covers large trees 

 with a luxuriant drapery of foliage, are a favorite fruit of many 

 kinds of birds, particularly the catbird, brown thrasher, wood 

 thrush and flicker, and on this account, if no other, should be 

 grown by all lovers of birds. The fruit of Cissus stans, another 

 southern species, is also very distinct in its coloring, the ex- 

 tremely glossy berries, the size of peas, ranging from light pink, 

 through garnet, red and dark crimson to jet black. The ele- 

 gant pinnate foliage of this vine is unique in its peculiar dark 

 bluish-green color, the upper surface of the leaves having a 

 semimetallic lustre. 



In this winter month vegetables are still shown in great 

 variety not only in the principal markets, but as part of the 

 regular stock in many of the food-supply stores in residence 

 sections of the city. Besides summer crops grown in the 

 north, as Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, cabbage, celery, 

 onions, pumpkins, Hubbard squash, carrots, parsnips, beets, 

 salsify, celeriac, Jerusalem artichokes, Brussels sprouts, cauli- 

 flower and turnips, fresh products from hothouses and southern 



fields are common. Small carrots in bunches, with fresh tops, 

 are one of the most attractive and showy of the new vege- 

 tables ; these are grown in frames near by ; choice mush- 

 rooms now sell at sixty-five cents a pound ; radishes, from 

 northern hot-houses, and cucumbers, from Boston, are seen 

 in every collection ; the latter cost fifteen cents each. Cucum- 

 bers grown out-of-doors in Florida cost half this price. Scal- 

 loped squashes, or cymlings, from Florida, at seven cents 

 each; string-beans, at twenty cents a quart; peas, at $1.00 a 

 half-peck, and tomatoes, at twenty cents a pound, are other 

 receipts from the same state. Eggplants, peppers and okra are 

 in regular supply. New beets, from New Orleans, cost seven 

 cents a bunch, and new potatoes, from Bermuda, bring fifty 

 cents a half-peck. Artichokes, from France, sell at twenty-five 

 cents each. Kale, lettuce, spinach, escarole, dandelion, cress, 

 chervil, parsley, corn salad, mint, chives and tarragon are all 

 seen at Kelly's, in Washington Market, many of the more deli- 

 cate and tender greens coming in neat bunches in small hand- 

 baskets direct from growers in New Jersey and Long Island. 



In the November issue of The Botanical Magazine, Sir 

 Joseph Hooker figures and describes Mammea Americana 

 (t. 7562), a West Indian tree cultivated for its edible fruit, the 

 mammee apple, which occasionally finds its way into the fruit- 

 stores of this city. The fruit, which Sir Joseph Hooker has 

 eaten on the Cape de Verde Islands, where this tree was early 

 introduced, he compares to a good turnip with a sweetish and 

 faintly aromatic flavor. The Mammea Americana is a large 

 umbrageous tree from sixty to seventy feet in height, with a 

 stout trunk and a dense head of thick branches covered with 

 dark brown bark. The handsome white flowers are produced 

 singly or in from two to four flowered clusters directly from the 

 wood of the branches in the axils of fallen leaves, and are fra- 

 grant and about an inch and a half in diameter. The fruit, 

 which varies from that of the size of an orange to that of a 

 child's head, is hemispherical or nearly so, with a rough, 

 leathery yellow bitter rind and a thinner interior skin enclos- 

 ing a firm, somewhat spongy white pulp soon turning yellow- 

 ish and of a hard fibrous consistency. This pulp surrounds 

 from one to four large brown oblong, rather compressed 

 rugose nuts with hard fibrous coats and oily, fleshy cotyledons. 

 By the Portuguese and early British residents in the West In- 

 dies the fruit was cut in pieces and eaten with wine and sugar, 

 and also preserved. A liquor called Eau de Creole andCrSme 

 des Creoles is obtained by distillation from the flowers infused 

 in spirits of wine. From the bark an acrid resinous gum is 

 obtained and the cotyledons yield hair oil. The wood is 

 described as being comparatively worthless, but the tree with 

 its brilliant green leaves and deliciously scented flowers is so 

 handsome an object that Tussac, in his Flora of the Antilles, 

 where it is well figured, speaks of it as " La Sirene Vege'- 

 tale." 



The following note by Mr. W. L. Jepson, published in the 

 November issue of Krythea, will interest, perhaps, those who 

 have been successful in cultivating Carpenteria Californica, one 

 of the most beautiful flowering shrubs of the Pacific states. 

 " The first collector of this plant, as is well known, was General 

 Fremont, who obtained it on one of his expeditions through the 

 interior of California. No definite locality was known for 

 Carpenteria until Dr. Gustav Eisen rediscovered it in Fresno 

 County, on Big Dry Creek, in the foot-hills north-east of 

 Fresno City. The shrubs, of which there were probably about 

 1,000, grew on the southern exposure of a chaparral hill about 

 a mile above the toll-house, near what is known as the Grape 

 Vine Spring, on the road to Pine Ridge. The altitude is about 

 3,500 feet, where are found the last Digger Pines (PinusSabini- 

 ana) and the first Sugar Pines (Pinus Lambertiana); it is also 

 the lower limit of Fremontia, which extends 500 feet higher up. 

 The shrubs were about seven to eight feet in height, and the 

 flowers very striking in their showiness. The particular hill 

 on which the species was found was about a mile in circum- 

 ference. Big Dry Creek does not empty into Kings River, but 

 loses itself in the San Joaquin Plains. Dr. Eisen collected 

 about twenty-five pounds of the fruit, which was sent to a 

 Washington 'florist, who distributed seed to other florists of the 

 eastern United States and Europe. From such a source came 

 the plants that were offered for sale in their catalogues. From 

 seed of the same collection a single plant was also grown in 

 the experimental garden of the Department of Agriculture of 

 the University of California. This bush has never fruited, but 

 it has been easily propagated by cuttings. The above account 

 of the single known locality, was drawn up from a verbal de- 

 scription by Dr. Eisen. The rediscovery of the species was 

 made in 1875 and the locality was revisited during several years 

 thereafter." 



