April ii, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



143 



wild nature of the Alps. In the " Linnsea " almost unpar- 

 alleled opportunity will exist for such work. 



The director extends a cordial invitation to all Americans 

 traveling abroad to visit the garden. He desires also to 

 receive seeds of alpine plants from all parts of North 

 America. It is to be hoped that the responses to this re- 

 quest will be many and prompt. Such seeds may be sent 

 to the director of the garden. H. Correvon, 2 Plainpalais, 

 Geneva, Switzerland. 



Washington, D. C. 



G. H. Hicks. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 



Japanese Trees and Shrubs formed the subject of a lec- 

 ture by Mr. J. H. Veitch at the last meeting of the Royal 

 Horticultural Society. A large number of Fellows at- 

 tended, and Mr. Veitch's discourse, illustrated by means of 

 numerous dried specimens and living plants, was full of 

 interest. He expressed his indebtedness to Professor Sar- 

 gent, who was his traveling companion in Japan during a 

 portion of his stay there, and whose knowledge of the flora 

 was of great advantage to him. The matter of the dis- 

 course was, in the main, similar to that of the series of arti- 

 cles on Japanese plants, recently published in Garden and 

 Forest. Mr. Veitch collected plants and seeds of many 

 plants which he believes will be accepted as good garden- 

 plants in England when their merits become known. The 

 number of first-rate ornamental trees and shrubs that we 

 owe to Japan is already very considerable, and fresh addi- 

 tions are being made every year, some of them being, of 

 course, only re-introduced, but others are quite new to cul- 

 tivation. 



Prunus Pissardi is beautiful at Kew now (the middle of 

 March), and it bids fair to become at least as popular as the 

 Almond and double Peach, which are also wreathed in 

 flower with us at this time. The Prunus was first recom- 

 mended as a garden-tree chiefly, I believe, on account of 

 the coppery-red color of its foliage, a character which gives 

 it considerable value when used judiciously. But this char- 

 acter is eclipsed by the flower-beauty of the trees in spring, 

 when the branches are heavily laden with medium-sized 

 pale pink flowers, among which the unfolding brown-red 

 leaves have a most harmonious effect. English nursery- 

 men, seeing that it is sure to be in great demand, are prop- 

 agating it largely. It owes its garden-name to the fact of 

 its having been introduced into France about fifteen years 

 ago by Monsieur Pissard, gardener to the Shah of Persia, 

 where it is a native. Its proper botanical name is P. cerasi- 

 fera, var. atropurpurea. Its fruits are red, an inch in diam- 

 eter and edible. 



Almond-trees in Street-gardens. — In the neighborhood 

 of Kew, Almond-trees are a conspicuous feature, occurring 

 in almost every villa-garden, so that the roads are all aglow 

 at this time of year with the beautiful flowers of this fine 

 tree. The extraordinary number of Almond-trees here, is, 

 no doubt, due to an accident, probably some nurseryman, 

 with a big stock of them, having supplied the trees for the 

 gardens when they were first planted some fifteen or twenty 

 years ago. He was a public benefactor, anyhow, whether 

 by accident or design, the Almond-trees giving the locality 

 a delightful character, almost, if not quite, unique. I refer 

 to it here because it teaches a useful lesson, namely, that 

 effective trees which prove themselves suited to a locality 

 should be planted abundantly in preference to that endless 

 variety which often confuses and rarely is effective. Kew 

 might be called Almond Grove at this time of year. 



Columellia oblonga is an interesting and pretty little 

 shrub which is grown in a cool greenhouse at Kew, where 

 it is now in flower. According to Sir Joseph Hooker, it is 

 common at high elevations (13,000 feet) above Quito, 

 where it forms a small tree, with whitish branchlets cov- 

 ered with opposite, tongue-shaped, crenately toothed leaves 

 about an inch long, and terminated by compact clusters of 

 yellow, fleshy, Primrose-like flowers three-quarters of an 



inch across. At Kew the plants are small, barely a foot 

 high, yet they are flowering freely. This and another spe- 

 cies, also Andean, constitute the natural order Columel- 

 liacese, which is now placed between Pinguicula and 

 Gesneraceas, but which is so anomalous that Don gave the 

 Jasmines as its nearest affinity, Lindley Vaccinieaa, and 

 Hooker Loganiaceaj. The corolla is formed of a short 

 broad tube and five orbicular spreading lobes ; there are 

 two large short stamens and a short two-lobed style. 



Digitalis Canariensis is the garden name for a plant now 

 rarely seen, but which was cultivated in England nearly 

 two hundred years ago, and was figured by Lindley in the 

 first volume of his Botanical Register, t. 48. I would ad- 

 vise any one who wants to make the acquaintance of a 

 striking and beautiful flowering shrub to turn to Lindley 's 

 picture of it, and then to write to some one in the Canary 

 Islands for plants or seeds. It is cultivated at Kew, and I 

 saw a plant of it last year in the Glasnevin Botanic Garden. 

 It forms an upright shrub ultimately about six feet high. 

 with stout woody branches bearing only a few leaves at 

 the ends, and these are from six inches to a foot long, 

 linear lanceolate and fleshy. The flowers are borne in 

 crowded terminal erect spikes a foot long, each flower be- 

 ing tubular, an inch long, fleshy, and colored bright orange- 

 yellow. It requires protection from frost. The proper 

 name for this plant now is Isoplexis Canariensis. 



Tulipa Kaufmannii is a rare and beautiful species, of 

 which flowers were exhibited at a recent meeting of the 

 Royal Horticultural Society by Mr. Lynch, curator of the 

 Cambridge Botanic Garden, where this plant has been ex- 

 ceptionally effective in the open border in the early part of 

 March. It has flowers as large as a large form of T. Ges- 

 neriana, measuring, when wide open, seven inches in 

 diameter ; its color is creamy yellow, changing to white 

 after it has been open three or four days. The unopened 

 buds are prettily marked with a broad central line of red 

 and bluish feathering on the back of the petals. It is a dis- 

 tinct and evidently free-growing species. I observe the 

 Dutch bulb-growers offer bulbs of it. For its introduction 

 we are indebted to Dr. A. Regel, who found it in Tur- 

 kestan in 1877. Mr. Baker says it is as variable in color as 

 T. Gesneriana, ranging through various shades of red and 

 yellow to white. 



Fritillaria aurea is a pretty little species which may 

 be grown in pots for the conservatory in spring or planted 

 out in the open border. It is allied to. F. latifolia and F. 

 aurea ; indeed, it was at first considered identical with the 

 latter by Mr. Baker. It has been in cultivation since 1876, 

 when it was introduced from Cilicia. It has lately been 

 sent again in quantity by Mr. E. Whittall from Smyrna, 

 and the flowers of these Smyrnian plants are nearly as 

 large again as those from the Taurus, as described by Mr. 

 Baker and figured in The Garden two years ago. There 

 are a few pots of Mr. Whittall's plants in the alpine-house 

 at Kew, five-inch pots containing half a dozen bulbs. 

 From each of the bulbs springs an erect stem six inches 

 high, clothed with narrow lanceolate, glaucous-green 

 leaves two or three inches long, and bearing a cernuous 

 flower which is campanulate, one and a half inches across 

 the mouth ; the segments oblong obtuse, nearly an inch 

 long, and the color bright canary-yellow, copiously freckled 

 with small brown-purple dots. 



Two New Orchids. — Messrs. F. Sander & Co. have re- 

 cently introduced from New Guinea a new Grammatophyl- 

 lum and a Dendrobium, plants of which were offered at an 

 auction sale a few weeks ago. They are described by Pro- 

 fessor Kranzlin in the Gartenflora for March 1st as follows : 

 Grammatophyllum Guilelmi II.: habit of G. Fenzlianum, 

 but larger, with massive stems and leaves'two feet long by 

 four inches in width. Raceme about three feet long, bear- 

 ing from twenty to thirty-five handsome flowers, each over 

 three inches in 'diameter and colored purplish-brown mar- 

 gined with greenish-yellow, the lip white with purple 

 stripes. Dendrobium Augustas Victoria? : a large-growing 

 species in the way of D. Mirbelianum, bearing, at the apex 



