24 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 308. 



The fruit of Moms, which is the aggregation of several 

 nut-like individual fruits, each enclosed in the thick, fleshy, 

 succulent calyx of the flower, has a pleasant aciduous 

 flavor, and in some countries is much esteemed, the trees 

 being grown specially for the fruit. 



Our American Red Mulberry, the Morus rubra of bot- 

 anists, although the color of the fruit to which it owes its 

 name is rather dark purple, or almost black, rather than 

 red, is a broad-branched, round and dense-headed tree, 

 which sometimes, under exceptionally favorable conditions', 

 grows to a height of sixty feet and produces stout trunks 

 three or four feet in diameter. Trunks of even more noble 

 dimensions may occasionally be met with, and on the 

 estate of Mr. P. J. Berckmans, President of the American 

 Pomological Society, in Augusta, Georgia, there was, a few 

 years ago, a noble specimen with a trunk which °-irted 

 nearly twenty feet at three feet above the surface of the 

 ground. 



The leaves of the Red Mulberry are of ample size, ovate 

 pointed, heart-shaped at the base, and, like those of other 

 Mulberry-trees, often deeply lobed on vigorous young 

 shoots ; they are of the darkest and richest green, rou°-h to 

 the touch on the upper surface and coated on the lower 

 more or less thickly with pale hairs. The flowers, like 

 those of other Mulberry-trees, are insignificant in appear- 

 ance, and are borne in unisexual, catkin-like, axillary clus- 

 ters, the two sexes being produced sometimes on the same 

 individual, and sometimes on separate individuals the 

 male flowers in short loose racemes and the females in 

 dense heads. The flowers have no corolla, and consist of 

 a minute four-parted green calyx, and either of four sta- 

 mens or of a simple pistil. The fruit, which resembles a 

 small blackberry, ripens in June and July. 



The Red Mulberry is widely scattered over the territory 

 of the United States ; from western New England and Long 

 Island it ranges west through southern Ontario to the Black 

 Hills of North Dakota, and southward to Cape Romano 

 and the shores of Bay Biscayne, in Florida, and to the 

 valley of the Colorado River, in Texas. It is a tree that 

 loves deep, rich, well-watered soil, and is usually found 

 on the alluvial bottom-lands of streams, where it is often 

 very abundant, especially in the region west of the Alle- 

 ghany Mountains, where it grows to its largest size. 



The bright orange-colored wood of the Red Mulberry is 

 not without value, although it is soft, coarse-grained and 

 not particularly strong ; it is tough, however, and few of 

 our woods more successfully resist decay, when placed in 

 contact with the soil. It is much used, therefore, in fenc- 

 ing; it is considered valuable by coopers, and 'in some 

 parts of the southern states is employed in boat-buildino- 



As a fruit-tree the Red Mulberry is not to be despised 

 as travelers who have had the good fortune to pass a sum- 

 mer nooning, well shaded from the heat of the sun among 

 its branches can gratefully testify. No attention has been 

 paid to improving the fruit by selection or cultivation, as 

 mulberries are not greatly esteemed in this country, where 

 other fruits are plenty. There seems no reason, however 

 why it could not be made to equal the best European va- 

 rieties in size and quality. 



In ornamental planting, the Red Mulberry is valuable in 

 some situations as a specimen, as may be seen in the 

 illustration, on page 25, of a tree on the grounds of the Ala- 

 bama Agricultural Experiment Station. This tree, which 

 is about thirty feet in height, with a trunk circumference of 

 more than ten feet, stands in what was a gullied "old 

 field" when the college acquired the land some fifteen years 

 ago. Under systematic cultivation the soil has rapidly 

 regained its former fertility, and the tree has taken on new 

 growth and vigor, which is seen in its rapidly increasing 

 size and symmetry. This regularity in the outline of its 

 head, and the denseness and the dark color of the leaves 

 are distinguishing marks of our Mulberry, and they are 

 features which do not lend themselves readily to landscape- 

 composition in which other trees of more open habit and 

 lighter foliage predominate. 



Like all the Mulberries, the American species is easily 

 raised from seed and easily transplanted, although yountc 

 seedlings are rather tender, and during their early years are 

 the better for a little winter protection, especially in regions 

 of more severe climate than those in which the tree «rows 

 naturally. 



Plant Notes. 



Hybrid Nymphaeas. 



GROWERS of Water-lilies in this country have for 

 some years been familiar with the beautiful yellow- 

 flowered Nymphaea called Chromatella and the later 

 hybrids which have been produced by Monsieur Latour- 

 Marliac, of Temple-sur-Lot, France. A late number of the 

 London Garden contains a colored plate of N. Marliacea 

 carnea, which represents a flower seven inches across 

 five inches high and colored creamy white, tin°-ed with 

 red at the base of the petals, while the stamens are a rich 

 orange. Accompanying this is a letter from Monsieur 

 Marliac, the greater portion of which we herewith quote, for 

 we are sure our readers will be glad to get accurate infor- 

 mation as to the parentage of these hybrids, together with 

 some idea of the systematic and intelligent way in which 

 this most successful producer of new Water-lilies is still 

 devoting himself to the production of novel forms and 

 colors in these beautiful plants. 



About the year 1879 [ commenced the work in earnest bv 

 crossing the finest types of hardy and tropical Nymphaeas 

 which I had in cultivation. These early attempts were at first 

 negative in their results, but soon afterward I scored an un- 

 expected success in a hybrid with deep red flowers the seed 

 parent of which was Nymphaea pygmasa alba, fertilized with 

 pollen from the flowers of N. rubra Indica. Unfortunately 

 and to my great disappointment, this magnificent specimen 

 proved hopelessly barren, and from it I obtained neither seeds 

 nor offsets, so that, after having tried in vain to reproduce it 

 I gave up the task and turned my attention in another di- 

 rection. 



In order to obtain plants of a really ornamental character it 

 seemed especially necessary not to employ as seed parents any 

 subjects except such as were very free-flowering-, and by rig- 

 orously adhering to this principle I succeeded, little by little 

 by means of numerous sowings and strict selections in rais- 

 ing types which were in every way improved in the form and 

 other characteristics of their flowers. It was thus that one of 

 these new subjects, N. alba, fertilized with pollen from the 

 American species, N. flava, produced N. Marliacea Chroma- 

 tella, which has achieved such a hiarh reputation. In the fol- 

 lowing year I obtained the hybrid, N. odorata sulphurea from 

 a similar crossing of N. odorata alba with N. flava and the 

 last-named species has also been the pollen parent of N nv^- 

 maea Helvola. ' KJi = 



About the same time two species of high character made 

 their appearance in gardens, namely, N. spluerocarpa, a native 

 ot Sweden, and the elegant N. odorata rubra, found at Cape 

 Cod, in North America. The sparse-flowering character of 

 IN. spha-rocarpa (a diminutive possible sire by the side of my 

 first-raised hybrid) determined me to reject it for hybridizing 

 purposes, and I gave all my attention to the fascinating- Amer- 

 ican variety, N. odorata rubra, which, employed as thl pollen 

 parent with my choicest specimen of N. alba as seed parent 

 rewarded me with the sweet N. Marliacea rosea and N Mar- 

 liacea carnea N odorata rubra was subsequently the parent 

 of the beautiful N. odorata exquisita, the color of which is 

 pink, approaching to carmine. As the last-raised specimen 

 ot this first group of my hardy hybrid Nymphasas, I must 

 men ion the remarkable N. Marliacea albida, the flowers of 

 which have not yet been surpassed in size by those of any 

 other Nymphaea. J 



In the year 1889 the Universal Exhibition was held at Paris 

 and my smal collection of the above-named hybrids timidly 

 took the road to the metropolis, to see if possibly they mi<riit 

 attract some notice from amateurs in the midst of the plant- 

 wonders there. Their graceful elegance, however, was ap- 

 preciated and they came back with the distinction of a first 

 prize. The success achieved at the Universal Exhibition put 

 fresh life into my ambition, and I applied myself to the work 

 ot effecting _a cross which would produce plants with flowers 

 ot a very bright red color, much superior to the color of N 

 spnaerocarpa and N. odorata rubra, which I had proved to be 



