134 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 319. 



across and remarkable in having the three dorsal segments 

 erect and the two lower ones horizontal, their color being 

 bright yellow, with lines of green. The lip is small, deli- 

 cately hinged and purplish in color. Odontoglossum ex- 

 cellens chrysomelanum, also from Sir Trevor Lawrence, 

 was awarded a first-class certificate. It is remarkable for 

 the clear yellow and the almost crimson color of the 

 blotches of its segments. Dendrobium Sybil, a hybrid be- 

 tween D. Linawianum and D. bigibbum, raised by Mr. 

 Cookson, was deservedly awarded a first-class certificate, 

 its purplish-yellow-throated large flowers being both dis- 

 tinct and attractive. 



The following plants were among the miscellaneous ex- 

 hibits : Andromeda Japonica, a group of bushes six inches 

 high, clothed from top to bottom with large panicles of 

 Lily-of-the-valley-like flowers — perfect cascades of white 

 bells. Bignonia venusta, shown from Lyon House, where 

 this grand greenhouse climber has been a feature for many 

 years. Its long string-like shoots are clothed to a length of 

 several yards with bunches of large tubular orange-yellow 

 flowers. It is one of the finest of the genus. Rhododen- 

 dron albicans, a hybrid between R. mollis and R. occi- 

 dentalis, raised about ten years ago by Mr. A. Waterer, 

 was shown in flower, and obtained an award of merit. It 

 is exactly like R. mollis in foliage and size of flowers, 

 which are pure white, with a blotch of lemon on the upper 

 segments, and are produced in large full trusses. 



Ferraria antherosa is a singular-looking Irid from the 

 Cape, with stems two feet high, clothed with fleshy am- 

 plexicaule leaves and greenish purple, Iris-like flowers. It 

 is grown at Kew, and is interesting to those who are 

 botanically inclined. 



Rhododendron racemosum, from Messrs. J. Veitch & Sons, 

 is a delightful little pot-shrub, which is said to be hardy at 

 Coombe. It is less than a foot in height, and has Box-like 

 foliage and numerous compact little trusses, two inches in 

 diameter, of white flowers with pink tips. It is a distinct 

 and promising little plant, for the introduction of which we 

 are indebted to the French horticulturists, who obtained it 

 from Yun-nan. 



Loropetalum Sinense is a rare little shrub, related to 

 Hamamelis, with alternate ovate leaves an inch long and 

 clusters of flowers with long, narrow, whitish petals. It 

 might be made a useful plant for the cold greenhouse. It 

 is a native of China, and is not hardy here. Messrs. Veitch 

 showed a basket of nice little specimens of it covered with 

 flowers. 



Shortia galacifolia was shown in finer condition than 

 I had ever before seen it, plants in small three-inch pots, 

 and no larger than a man's fist, carrying about twenty pure 

 white, nodding, fringed bells. It is a charming little alpine, 

 hardy with us, and I learn it is likely soon to be abundantly 

 represented here, one garden alone possessing a large 

 frameful of healthy, newly imported plants. 



Streptocarpus Wendlandii. — A group of this distinct new 

 species was shown by Messrs. Sutton & Sons. It is remark- 

 able for the size of its single leaf, which rivals that of S. 

 Dunnii in size, but differs in being less wrinkled and in 

 being purple beneath. The flowers are borne on erect 

 stout scapes two feet high, freely branched and clothed 

 with a perfect sheaf of violet-purple white-eyed flowers one 

 and a half inches across. The introduction of this plant is 

 mysterious. About eight years ago a chance seedling came 

 up in the fernery at Kew. It was soon seen to be distinct, 

 and in two years its single leaf was three feet long by two 

 feet in width. When it flowered it was thought to 

 be a variety of S. Saundersii, of which there is a figure 

 in the Botanical Magazine, t. 5251. About three years ago 

 it was offered by a Continental nurseryman under its 

 present name. There are some fine plants now in flower 

 at Kew which are hybrids between it and S. Dunnii. The 

 flowers are large, not unlike those of S. Wendlandii in 

 shape, but colored deep magenta. 



Vriesia Rex, a hybrid or seedling shown by Monsieur 

 Duval, of Versailles, received an award of merit on account 



of the deep, uniform crimson color of its large imbricating 

 bracts, which contrast prettily with the yellow flowers. It 

 belongs to the same set as V. psittacina and V. Morrineana. 

 Blue Primroses were shown by Mr. G. F. Wilson, a col- 

 lection of some three dozen flowers of various shades of 

 blue, plum-blue, lavender, etc. There are true blues among 

 them. 



London. W. WatSOTl. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Prunus Watsoni. 



'OR a shrubby Plum which has been growing in the 

 Arnold Arboretum since 1880, when it was raised 

 from seed sent from Ellis, Kansas, I propose the name of 

 Prunus Watsoni * (see page 135), in honor of Dr. Louis 

 Watson, of Ellis, a brother of the late Sereno Watson, through 

 whom I first became acquainted with this plant. 



As it grows in the Arboretum, Prunus Watsoni is a 

 twiggy shrub three or four feet high, with slender, rigid, 

 zigzag branches which are bright red and lustrous during 

 their first year, and later growing darker, are marked with 

 pale lenticels, and develop spur-like lateral branchlets. 

 The winter buds are acute, an eighth of an inch long, and 

 are covered with many closely imbricated, light chestnut- 

 brown scales ; those of the inner ranks are accrescent, and 

 at maturity are half an inch long, three-lobed, with small 

 acute lateral lobes, and a larger terminal lobe, rounded at 

 the apex, and remotely crenulate-serrate. The leaves are 

 an inch to an inch and a half long, half an inch to two- 

 thirds of an inch wide, thick and firm, lustrous on the upper 

 and pale on the lower surface, with slender midribs, ob- 

 scure veins, and bright red petioles half an inch in length. 

 The flowers, which appear about the middle of May, are very 

 fragrant, and are produced in the greatest profusion, quite 

 covering the branches ; they are borne on slender glabrous 

 pedicels a quarter of an inch long, in crowded three to four 

 flowered fascicles, and when expanded are half an inch in 

 diameter. The fruit, which ripens in great quantities, and 

 sometimes hangs on the branches late into the winter, is 

 two-thirds of an inch in diameter, with a thick bright orange- 

 red skin without bloom, and bright yellow juicy flesh, 

 which, although slightly austere, is edible, and sometimes 

 of good quality. 



It is this plant which is the Sand Plum of southern and 

 south-eastern Nebraska and central Kansas, where it forms 

 thickets in low sandy soil near streams. On the banks of 

 the Saline River, where, ten or twelve miles from Ellis, it 

 is very abundant, the plants vary from three to ten or 

 twelve feet in height ; on some individuals the fruit ripens 

 early in August, and on others as late as the 1st of October. 

 The Sand Plum is occasionally planted in the gardens of 

 central Kansas, and the wild fruit is gathered in large quan- 

 tities and sold in the towns. 



Prunus Watsoni has been mistaken by travelers in the 

 trans-Missouri region for Prunus angustifolia, the Cherokee 

 Plum, from which it differs in habit, in its thicker leaves, 

 thicker-skinned fruit and smaller stone, the stone of Prunus 

 angustifolia being less deeply pitted, thick-margined on the 

 ventral suture, conspicuously grooved on the dorsal suture, 

 and less abruptly flattened at the apex. 



The hardiness of Prunus Watsoni in regions of extreme 

 cold, its compact dwarf habit, abundant flowers and hand- 

 some fruit make it an ornamental plant of first-rate value, 

 and as selection and good cultivation will doubtless im- 

 prove the size and quality of the fruit, it will, perhaps, 

 become a valuable inmate of small fruit-gardens. C. S. S. 



* Prunus Watson*:, n. sp. — A shrub six to ten feet high. Leaves, ovate, acute, 

 rounded or wedge-shaped at the base, finely crenulate-serrate, lustrous on the 

 upper, pale on the lower surface; petioles slender, grooved, bi-glandular at the 

 apex. Flowers in crowded few-flowered fascicles* calyx cup-shaped, the lobes 

 acute, rounded at the apex, eglandular, ciliate on the margins, pubescent on the 

 inner face ; petals inserted remotely on the glandular disk, narrowly obovate, 

 rounded and more or less erose above, contracted below into short claws, pure 

 white; filaments glabrous; anthers minute, obtuse, yellow or bright red; style 

 slender, exserted. Fruit globose, or rarely oblong, orange-red ; putamen turbid, 

 rounded on the ventral suture and rounded and sometimes obscurely grooved on 

 the dorsal suture, abruptly compressed at the narrowed apex, thick-walled, con- 

 spicuously porulose. 



