January io, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



19 



This kind of grafting- is done in warm weather, when the 

 vine is making its most active growth, the cions, which 

 contain two buds, being used when they are still flexible, 

 although the centre should be free from pith. The method 

 known as splice-grafting is used, and the cions are set 

 below the fourth bud from the extremity of the shoot. 



In this country the most approved practice is to cut the 

 vine low and graft below the surface of the ground. In 

 large vines, like those mentioned by our correspondent, 

 cleft-grafting is generally impossible, because the grain of 

 the stock is so twisted that it will not split true. Side-graft- 

 ing in various ways is recommended. One of the best is 

 to make an oblique groove on the side of the stump with 

 a fine saw and chisel. The groove should be about a 

 quarter of an inch across, according to the size of the cion, 

 and about as deep as its diameter ; a special saw, making a 

 draw-cut about an eighth of an inch wide, instead of a push- 

 cut, is sometimes used for this operation. The cion, which 

 must have two buds, is then shaved off on opposite sides, 

 half-way between the buds, so that it will fit into the 

 groove. When it is placed there one of the buds should 

 be below the level of the ground and the other one 

 above ; all the exposed surfaces are then carefully 

 waxed and the stump with the lower bud is covered 

 up with earth, while one bud remains above ground to 

 make growth. Of course, the cion should be dormant, 

 although the stock may be making active growth. If cions 

 are not already taken they may be cut any day during 

 the winter when they are not frozen, and kept in sand until 

 they are needed in spring. — Ed.] 



Recent Publications. 



The Genera of Taxacea and Conferee. By Maxwell T. 

 Masters. Reprinted from the Journal of "the Li?i?icean Society 

 of London. 



Dr. Masters has issued, in pamphlet form, his paper on the 

 "Genera of Taxaceas and Coniferae," read December 15th, 

 1892, before the Linnaean Society of London and published 

 in the thirtieth volume of its journal. This paper, the au- 

 thor tell us, is " the outcome of a comparative examination 

 of the morphological characters of all the genera of Tax- 

 aceas and Coniferae, so far as I have been able to accom- 

 plish it. In most cases living plants have been examined, 

 and in all instances the available museum and herbarium 

 specimens have been studied and the literature relating to 

 them referred to. Constant reference has also been made 

 to the schemes of arrangement proposed by the older 

 writers, and in more recent times by Eichler, Van Tieghem 

 and others. In the main, however, I have followed the 

 lines laid down by Bentham in Bentham & Hooker's 

 Genera Plan/arum." 



Taxaceae, an order first proposed by Lindley, but reduced 

 by Bentham to tribal rank, is restored, the genera being 

 distributed in two tribes, Salisburinese, composed of Ginkgo, 

 Cephalotaxus and Torreya, a perfectly natural group ; and 

 Taxineae, divided into two sub-tribes, of which the Yew, 

 Taxus, is considered the type of the first. With it are joined 

 the Australian genera, Pherosphaera and Phyllocladus, and 

 Dacrydium, a genus widely distributed through the Malay 

 peninsula, Borneo, New Zealand, Tasmania, New Caledonia 

 and Chili. Podocarpus is made the type of the second 

 sub-tribe, and with it are placed Stachycarpus of New Zea- 

 land, by Endlicher considered a section of Podocarpus, and 

 later by Van Tieghem a distant genus, the view here adopted 

 by Dr. Masters. With Podocarpus, too, are grouped Micro- 

 cachrys, "aTasmanian shrub, with small decussate leaves, 

 which pass gradually at the end of some of the branches 

 into stamens." It is best distinguished from Podocar- 

 pus by the form of the pollen grains, the aggregated fruits 

 and the woody axis of the flower-spikes. Here, too, is 

 placed Saxegotha;a of Chili. 



The Coniferas are divided into four tribes, Cupressineae, 

 Taxodineae, Araucarineae and Abietinece. In Cupressineae 

 are grouped Juniperus, common in the boreal parts of both 



hemispheres and extending south to the Mediterranean 

 basin, the islands of the Atlantic, the Himalayas and the 

 West Indies ; Tetraclinis, with a single species in Morocco, 

 the Gum Sandrac tree ; Callitris of Australasia ; Actinostro- 

 bus of western Australia ; Widdringtonia of southern Africa 

 and Madagascar, distinguished from Callitris in habit and 

 foliage, by its terete branchlets and opposite leaves ; Fitz- 

 roya, evergreen trees of Chili and Patagonia, and of 

 Tasmania; Cupressus. to which Dr. Masters refers the Jap- 

 anese Thuyopsis and Chamaxyparis, including the Jap- 

 anese Retinosporas. The two-ranked branchlets of Cha- 

 maecyparis, however, the fewer seeds, generally two under 

 each scale, and the fact that the cones mature in one instead 

 of in two years, would seem to make it possible to retain 

 generic rank for this group, which would, on the whole, be 

 a rather more convenient arrangement than to merge it 

 with Cupressus ; Thuya, with representatives in eastern 

 and western North America, China and Japan, the Hima- 

 laya Mountains and the Orient ; and Libocedrus, which 

 has a remarkable distribution, the species being natives of 

 China, the mountains of New Guinea, our Pacific states, 

 the Chilian Andes and New Zealand. 



In Taxodineae are placed Sciadopitys, with a single endemic 

 Japanese species ; Anthrotaxis of Tasmania ; Sequoia, with 

 our two California species ; Glyptostrobus of southern China, 

 and not to be confounded with the plant usually found in 

 gardens under that name, which is a monstrous form of 

 the Taxodium of our southern states ; Cryptomeria, with a 

 single endemic species in Japan, and Taxodium, the Bald 

 Cypress of the south, with possibly a second species in 

 Mexico, unless the Mexican Cypress is considered a mere 

 geographical form. 



In Araucarineae are placed Cunninghamia, with a solitary 

 Chinese species for which there is an older name, Bellis of 

 Salisbury, which Dr. Masters acknowledges should have 

 precedence, but which, owing to the similarity with Bellis, 

 he does not adopt ; Agathis of Australia, New Zealand, 

 some of the Pacific Islands, Brazil and Chili ; and Araucaria 

 of Australia, Brazil, Peru and the South Sea Islands. 



In Abietineag the genera are grouped in the following 

 sequence : Tsuga andPicea in the sub-tribe Piceas; Cedrus, 

 Larix and Pseudolarix in the sub-tribe Lariceae ; Kettellaria, 

 Abies, and Pseudotsuga in the sub-tribe Sapineae, and Pinus 

 in the sub-tribe Pineas. 



Dr. Masters is the most careful and experienced student 

 of Conifers. *His opportunities for studying these plants in 

 herbaria and in European collections have been exceptionally 

 great, and this paper, the result of years of patient investi- 

 gation, is a most important contribution to our knowledge 

 of one of the most interesting and valuable, but perplexing, 

 groups of plants. 



Notes. 



Mr. T. Makino, 3 Yawoicho, Mukogaoka, Tokyo, offers to 

 furnish sets of correctly named Japanese plants, with localities, 

 date of collection, etc., at twenty cents a specimen, exclusive 

 of postage or express charges. 



The new seedling Plum named Mary is spoken highly of by 

 the Fruit Committee of the Ohio Horticultural Society. ' It is a 

 medium-sized plum with yellow flesh, and the tree is an abun- 

 dant bearer. Last year this fruit sold at wholesale in the Cleve- 

 land market for more than twice the price which any other 

 plum commanded. 



Professor Massey, in The Mayflower, speaks very highly of 

 a variety of Torenia Fournieri known as Compacta. This 

 plant blooms in the border with the greatest profusion, ami 

 seems careless of the weather, whether wet or dry. The 

 flowers are a rich porcelain-blue, shading to dark velvety 

 blue, or almost purple, and, altogether, lie regards this as one 

 of the best of blue-flowered bedding-plants. 



The so-called pink Calla, which is probably a variety of 

 Richardia Rehmanni, a species with lanceolate, instead of 

 hastate, leaves, which was introduced into the Cambridge 

 Botanical Gardens in 1888, and of which specimens have since 

 been sent to Kew Gardens, has so far produced flowers which 

 show scarcely any trace of the rose color which characterizes 

 them in Natal. The Gardeners' Chronicle says that, although 



