8 4 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 314. 



dom staged at the horticultural shows, where their merits 

 would have been advertised, and no funds are provided 

 for figuring or publishing them. In this way it has 

 not seldom happened that new crosses have been of- 

 fered for sale in England and Belgium at high prices, 

 while plants of the same parentage have been flow- 

 ering for some years in Paris quite unknown to ama- 

 teurs and commercial growers. Flowers are found on 

 some of these Cypripediums all the year round, and at a 

 visit which I made to these gardens on the last days of 

 January I noted the following as deserving special men- 

 tion. They are all varieties which originated in the 

 Luxembourg greenhouses. 



Madelaine Gaillot, obtained some years ago by crossing 

 Cypripedium Dayanum with C. insigne Chantini. This is 

 a vigorous plant with a stout brownish stem bearing two 

 flowers. The upper sepal, with brown and greenish stripes, 

 is beautifully edged with pure white, while the lateral sepals 

 and the lip are strongly suffused with purplish red, the 

 base of the lateral sepal being marked by distinct brown 

 points. 



Madame Octave Opoixis a variety which has been already 

 described, although it is quite new and very graceful. It 

 is a seedling of C. superciliare fertilized by C. niveum. 

 The foliage is marbled with two shades of green, and the 

 stems, ten inches long, bear one, or occasionally two flow- 

 ers. The divisions of the perianth are broad and flat, and 

 the flower, although not large, is quite showy. The color is 

 nearly white, suffused with a tender lilac or lavender, the 

 lip being a little darker. The lateral sepal is dotted on the 

 margin, and the upper one is almost pure white. Among 

 undescribed varieties I observed three striking ones. The 

 first was obtained by crossing C. ciliolare with C. Lawrence- 

 anum. The foliage is strong and marbled, dark green pre- . 

 dominating. The stem is not less than two feet long ; the 

 flower is large and finely colored ; the dorsal sepal is broad 

 and firm, having dark stripes of green and purplish red, 

 strongly marked on the whitish ground of the central part, 

 and harmonizing well with the reddish edges of the sepals. 

 The base of the lateral sepals is marked by beautiful dots, 

 which, like the lip, are pale green suffused with reddish 

 brown. A second seedling, noted for its distinct and 

 intense color, was raised from Cypripedium Lowi crossed 

 with C. villosum. The stems, some ten niches high, carry 

 two or three flowers which are six inches across. The lip _ 

 is green, lightly tinged with brown. The lateral sepals 

 are darker in their upper part, dotted and ciliated. The 

 upper sepal has strong brown stripes, which are nar- 

 rowed close to the whitish edges. The flower has great 

 substance. 



A beautiful seedling of the Barbatum group, but of unre- 

 corded parentage, is a strong grower with a very dark 

 flower. The dark brown lip is of unusual size ; the lateral 

 divisions are scarcely lighter-colored, while the dorsal 

 sepal has strong stripes on a light ground. Among plants 

 which did not originate here I observed strong specimens 

 of C. villosum aureum, many of them bearing flowers of a 

 greenish golden yellow, much more vividly colored than 

 the ordinary type, and the contrast of these colors with the 

 pure white edge of the upper sepal was exceptionally beau- 

 tiful. Cypripedium Boxali atratum was also in perfect 

 flower and very attractive, the variety being distinct with 

 almost black dots. 



Among other Orchids, a fine specimen of Laelia elegans 

 was carrying flowers on stems nearly nine feet long, and 

 close to it an Angrecum superbum had five flower-stalks 

 and twenty-eight leaves, each three feet and a half long. 

 In a basket was a graceful old specimen of Dendrochi- 

 lum glumaceum with thirty-live flower-spikes, some of 

 them bearing flowers. Twenty plants of Laelia autum- 

 nalis from Mexico were brightening the corner of another 

 house with flowers six inches across, of a beautiful lilac- 

 pink, especially vivid at the point of the sepals. 



In the Cypripedium house is a beautiful collection of a 

 dozen varieties of Cryptanthus, which seem rather difficult 



to cultivate. Planted in pots on tables, they were growing 

 quite feebly. In another place these plants were placed in 

 baskets of sphagnum and hung near the glass, where they 

 grew finely. Cryptanthus zonatus Brunei was a mass of 

 fine velvety foliage, green and white, and two feet across. 

 C. zonatus viridis, of a light golden green, is nearly as 

 handsome. C. concidens andC. acaulis ruber are in smaller 

 tufts, but in perfect health. C. pumila has longer and 

 stalked leaves and is quite effective. C. Bucheri has also 

 petiolate leaves, which are clotted. 



In the greenhouses and large cool-houses are many 

 large specimens of Palms, Musas, Acacias and tender ever- 

 greens. Much attention has been given during late years 

 to the cultivation of Cyclamen Persicum, and immense 

 quantities of these plants are sold from September to 

 March or April. It has become a favorite plant for con- 

 servatories, and the cool-houses now are gay with it. The 

 English growers for a long time were our teachers, and it 

 was supposed that the cooler and moister climate of 

 England was better suited to the cultivation of these 

 plants than ours. Still the florists about Paris have 

 recently been very successful, and a fine lot of young 

 plants with single flowers were exhibited here last Decem- 

 ber. The plants, although strong and bearing flowers of 

 many and vivid shades, were not yet twelve months old ; 

 the pots were rather small, but the plants were as large as 

 commercial plants usually are in the market at fifteen to 

 eighteen months old. The grower of these plants is Mon- 

 sieur Max Jobert, ofChatenay. The same grower also staged 

 some so-called double-flowered Cyclamens, although some 

 of these were only plants with curiously abnormal flowers, 

 in the style of those described by Mr. Theodore Holm 

 (Garden and Forest, vol. v., p. 234). Some of them, how- 

 ever, were really double, the inner organs being more or 

 less petalized. Monsieur Jobert remarks thatsuch plants will 

 give double or semi-double flowers at the beginning or in 

 the height of the blooming season, but at the last the 

 flowers are nearly single and will seed freely, a good per- 

 centage of the seedlings being double. Anotherstrain is raised 

 by certain florists, and especially by Monsieur Arrileaux, of 

 Aumont, near Paris. The stems are stout, and not so numer- 

 ous as in the ordinary single-flowered type. All the flow- 

 ers are much larger and more effective. Each of the 

 petals is deeply cut near the base, so that it seems like two, 

 and the flowers appear to bear ten large petals. These 

 are sometimes quite divergent, so that the flowers seem 

 large. The strain is really a valuable one and is gaining 

 in favor. Quite double flowers are often produced and 

 sometimes they are found with unequal petals, but these 

 plants are no better than single ones. But in other exam- 

 ples the surplus petals are numerous and fairly developed, 

 and some of these new plants are really good. There can 

 be no doubt that an interesting point in the development 

 of the Cyclamen has been reached. 

 Paris. Maurice L. de Vilmorin. 



New or Little-known Plants. 

 Pyrus Miyabei. 



THIS tree, of which a figure is published on page 85 of 

 this issue, and which was described on page 213 of 

 our last volume, is one of the most distinct and interesting 

 plants of the genus to which it belongs. An inhabitant of 

 northern Japan, Pyrus Miyabei is exceedingly common in 

 the forests of Yezo, where it often attains the height of sixty 

 feet. It may be expected, therefore, to thrive in the north- 

 ern states, especially as it grows under conditions in which 

 several other trees perfectly hardy here flourish in their na- 

 tive country. It is remarkable that this tree has so long 

 escaped the serious attention of American and European 

 denclrologists, a fact which, perhaps, can be accounted for 

 by the difficulty of procuring seeds, which are, apparently, 

 not produced in large quantities, and are often injured by 

 insects or disease. 



