June .20, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



241 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 1894. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles: — The Cypresses of Monterey. (With figure.) 241 



Architecture and Vines 241 



Pacific Coast Seedling Fruits C. H. Shinn. 242 



Early June in the Pines Mrs. Mary Treat. 243 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter IV. Watson. 244 



Cultural Department : — Notes on Trees and Shrubs J. G. Jack. 246 



The Herbaceous Borders K. O. Orpet. 246 



Plants for Outdoor Decoration IV. H. Tallin. 247 



Orchid Notes Plantsman. 247 



Kougainvillea glabra IV. N. Craig. 247 



The' Water-garden, The Noble Grasses J.N. Gerard. 24S 



Correspondence : — Notes from West Virginia Danske Dandridge, 248 



The Development of Fungi Professor L. H. Pavtmel.. 24S 



The New Nurseries at South Orange, New Jersey A". 24a 



Meetings of Societies: — The American Association of Nurserymen 249 



Notes. 



249 



Illustration: — The Monterey Cypresses (Cupressus macrocnrpa), at Cypress 



Point, California, Fig. 41 245 



The Cypresses of Monterey. 



THE forests of Pacific North America are peculiar in 

 the presence of several cone-bearing trees, each now 

 confined to a small area — a remarkable fact, for Conifers 

 are usually plants of wide distribution. At the north the 

 Lawson's Cypress, Chamsecyparis Lawsoniana, the largest, 

 stateliest and most valuable tree of its kind, occupies a few 

 square miles of territory in the coast region of south- 

 western Oregon, with an outlying post or two on the 

 head-waters of the Sacramento in northern California. The 

 graceful Picea Breweriana is still known only in two or 

 three small groves high up on the slopes of the Siskiyou 

 Mountains, near the boundary line of Oregon and Cali- 

 fornia, with only a few hundred individuals, old and 

 young. Abies venusta, perhaps the most beautiful of the 

 American Firs, occupies with a scanty growth a few of the 

 interior valleys of the Santa Lucia Mountains of California ; 

 and Pinus Torreyana, the most local of Pine-trees, has only 

 succeeded in retaining a foothold on the bluffs near the 

 mouth of the Soledad River, in San Diego County, where 

 it is scattered in open groves up and down the coast for a 

 distance of five or six miles, with an outpost on the island 

 of Santa Rosa. 



But the most restricted in natural range of the American 

 Conifers is the Monterey Cypress, Cupressus macrocarpa. 

 This tree only grows spontaneously in the neighborhood 

 of Carmel Bay, in Monterey County, California, and there 

 are two groves ; the larger stretches from Cypress Point 

 southward to the shores of Carmel Bay, a distance of two 

 miles ; the smaller occupies Point Lobos, the southern 

 boundary of the bay. The larger grove extends from the 

 very edge of the sea-cliffs for about two hundred yards in- 

 land, when the trees begin gradually to mingle with the 

 Monterey Pine, Pinus insignis, which on this particular 

 part of the coast forms a large part of the forest-growth. In 

 some portions of the grove the trees are crowded together, 

 running up with tall stems and narrow pyramidal crowns ; 

 in others they are more scattered, displaying the flat heads 

 of horizontal branches, which distinguish the oldest indi- 

 viduals. On the borders of grassy lawns scattered here 



and there through this grove are many noble single speci- 

 mens ; and on the very edge of the cliffs trees gnarled, 

 twisted and dwarfed by centuries of conflict with the fierce 

 winds, laden with saline moisture, that sweep in from the 

 Pacific, show with what tenacity this tree has struggled to 

 preserve its last foothold. But it is hardly possible to con- 

 ceive that a tree of such vigorous constitution did not at 

 some earlier period occupy a larger territory, or that it has 

 not been driven to this inhospitalile shore by the gradual 

 drying of the California climate which followed the disap- 

 pearance of the great glaciers of the Sierras, or by the 

 direct action of fire in comparatively recent times, as Mr. 

 John Muir, the most careful and experienced student of 

 the changes of forest-conditions in California, suggests. 

 The adaptability of the Monterey Cypress when trans- 

 planted by man to flourish in climates very unlike that of 

 its present home seems to confirm this view. 



Discovered less than fifty years ago by the German col- 

 lector Hartweg, Cupressus macrocarpa was soon carried 

 into the gardens of Europe, where in all temperate coun- 

 tries it grows with extraordinary rapidity and vigor ; and 

 now on the Pacific coast, from Victoria, in Vancouver's 

 Island, to San Diego, it is everywhere the most universally 

 planted coniferous tree, growing apparently in all cli- 

 mates, soils and exposures as freely as the young trees in 

 the groves of Carmel Bay. 



The peculiar habit, with their great gnarled, spreading 

 branches, which the old trees assume in their home when 

 they have stood without the immediate protection of com- 

 panions is shown in the illustration on page 245 of this 

 issue. No picture, however, can fully display the pictur- 

 esqueness of these venerable trees or do justice to the 

 whiteness of their bark or the dark green of the foliage that 

 covers their ancient crowns ; and no one who has not 

 wandered through this grove on a sunny day in early 

 spring can obtain from any picture or from any written 

 words an idea of its beauty. Nowhere else on the shores 

 of this continent, at least, can a picture of such unsur- 

 passed beauty be seen or such a combination of bold, dark 

 red, ragged cliffs, perpetually bathed in the spray of 

 mighty breakers, of skies of the brightest blue and lawns 

 clothed with grass of the tenderest green and studded with 

 flowers of many brilliant hues, while above them the white 

 trunks, sometimes twisted into a thousand curious shapes, 

 sometimes straight and shaft-like, rise on all sides and 

 spread their dark and sombre canopy. 



Tens of millions of young plants of Cupressus macro- 

 carpa planted in British Columbia, Oregon and California, 

 in the countries bordering the Mediterranean and in west- 

 ern Europe, in Australia and New Zealand, will insure the 

 preservation of the species ; but its last natural strong- 

 hold should be jealously guarded, for Cypress Point is one 

 of the most interesting spots in the world to the lover of 

 trees ; and there are few places in any country which so 

 stir the lover of nature. One bad fire would sweep away 

 every Cypress-tree in either of the two groves, and the 

 animals, which are now allowed to browse at will and in 

 large numbers in the larger grove, destroy all seedlings as 

 they spring up, and, by impoverishing the soil, hasten 

 the decay of the older trees. Self-interest on the part of 

 the men who now own this grove and use it as the chief 

 attraction to the guests of the hotel at Monterey will make 

 them anxious to prevent fires, although apparently the}^ 

 have not established any system of fire guards The 

 same interest ought to induce them to prevent its injury 

 and devastation by bands of cattle. 



Architecture and Vines. 



A PROPOSAL that the public buildings of this city 

 should be ornamented with the Japanese Ivy, Ampe- 

 lopsis tricuspidata, seems to have been favorably enter- 

 tained by the officials who have the responsibility of 

 decision, and has been promptly endorsed by the newspa- 

 pers. There can be no doubt that, if discretion is shown 



