June 27, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



253 



contributes toward that happiness, there is no room in it 

 for tedious monotony. Is it necessary to draw attention 

 to the fact that, with few exceptions, the grounds surround- 

 ing our suburban homes are monotonously alike f Why 

 is it that we relish the very mention of an "old-fashioned 

 garden"? Until we fill our modern gardens with some of 

 the variety which characterizes the old-fashioned annuals, 

 it is to be feared that private and public flower-gardens 

 will continue to be uninteresting. It is erroneous to sup- 

 pose that people have lost interest in such flowers as 

 Dahlias, Hollyhocks, Sunflowers, Larkspurs and Nastur- 

 tiums. As for Poppies, few of us are personally acquainted 

 with the specifically beautiful types, and, of course, we 

 cannot admire them. A broad bed of beautiful Poppies, 

 which flutter gracefully in every passing breeze, is not to 

 be displaced by a carpet-patterned bed of Pelargonium 

 and Centaurea gymnocarpa, without the loss of something 

 essentially aesthetic ! The effect of scarlet and white 

 Poppies in brilliant sunlight, relieved against a background 

 of shady green foliage, is incomparable. 



Unfortunately our garden-flowers are arranged too much 

 — or rather, the arrangement is entirely of the wrong kind ! 

 But we are all apt to quarrel about methods ; suppose we 

 let them go for the nonce, and, figuratively speaking, paint 

 the garden on Nature's own canvas. This is not so diffi- 

 cult a thing to do as we may' imagine; but we must first 

 lift our eyes from the brown-earth patches and fasten them 

 on the "ground" of hazy-blue horizons, masses of green 

 foliage, picturesque bits of architecture, and garden gates 

 and walls ! If the garden is a picture, then these objects 

 form the best part of the background on which we must 

 work. _, , 



Boston, Mass. * ■ Schuyler Malliews. 



Botanical Notes from Texas. — XX. 



EAGLE PASS, a city of about 3,000 inhabitants, lies on the 

 banks of the Rio Grande River. It is about midway be- 

 tween the twenty-eighth and the twenty-ninth parallels, as it is 

 about midway between the one hundredth and the one hun- 

 dred and first meridians, and is about 800 feet above the level 

 of the Gulf. 



Between effects of drought and depredations of barbarian 

 goats ordinary plant-life in this region has suffered to an ex- 

 tent that renders successful botanizing here a slow process ; 

 still, under even such unfavorable conditions, there is much 

 that is interesting to be found along the streams, along the 

 railways and in the few cultivated fields. 



Cevaliia sinuata is a marvel of south-western botany. 

 Imagine, if you please, a pleasant-appearing plant with a pro- 

 fusion of basal stems that sometimes form a mass of vegeta- 

 tion three feet in diameter and as many feet tall ; its stems, 

 covered with a white shreddy bark, and bearing numerous 

 narrow, sinuately pinnatifid, sessile alternate leaves ; the 

 stems becoming pedunculate, and bearing at their sum- 

 mits clustered flowers, with a calyx of five greenish sepals, 

 a corolla of five yellowish petals and five stamens and 

 a solitary pistil, all more or less silky plumose — the whole 

 plant covered with a double set of stinging hairs — and 

 you will hardly miss the species that you are looking for. 

 Nature seems to have exhausted her energies in the effort, 

 and, so far as known, has been able to make only one Cevaliia. 

 All botanists, however, are glad that she succeeded in making 

 even one, so remarkable and distinct from all other plants. 



Schaefferia cuneifolia is common on the slopes around the 

 city. As seen here it is a smooth, unarmed, low shrub, with 

 small, pale green, obovate leaves, strongly veined on their 

 under surfaces. Its fruit is a small bright red, two-celled, and 

 two-seeded drupe, which is compressed and grooved between 

 the seeds. I have not seen Schaefferia east of Uvalde. For- 

 estiera angustifolia abounds throughout the lower Rio Grande 

 region. It is common here in ravines. In this species, as in 

 others that we have noticed, the yellow dominates the blue of 

 the green in the leaves, and gives to them an ocherous tint, 

 which assists in the easy recognition of the species. Its small, 

 ovate, black fruit is edible. 



One of the commonest shFubs around Eagle Pass is Condalia 

 spathulata. The species is as wicked as it is common. Each 

 one of its branchlets terminates in a long brown spine, which 

 is nearly as fine and sharp as a needle. To say that our shrub 



is nearly goat-proof tells the whole story of its meanness. Its 

 pleasant fruit is similar in form, although smaller, to that of 



C. obovata, which is also here. A handsome Acacia, very like 

 in foliage, flowers and general habit to its nearest congener, 

 A. Farnesiana, but in its ways of living giving assuring evi- 

 dence of being native-born, is A. tortuosa. Like most Texan 

 members of the genus, it prefers the richer and damper soils. 

 When in fruit it may readily be distinguished from our other 

 native species of Acacia by its long, flattened, curved and 

 pulpy pods. 



Most of our species of Dalea are noted for their good looks. 

 But none of them are handsomer than the tiny shrubby spe- 

 cies whose specific name constantly reminds us of its beauty, 



D. formosa. The time of my visit here was too late to see it 

 in the fullness of its flowering ; the few flowers which re- 

 mained impressed me with their remarkable beauty. 



In all south-western Texas, from about the ninety-seventh 

 meridian to the Rio Grande, the most abundantly growing 

 Acacia is A. amentacea. It has given itself only one pair of 

 pinnae, which bear three or four pairs of leaflets, that crowd 

 and overlap each other. Its flowers are borne in short oblong 

 spikes. They are succeeded by a profusion of small, rounded, 

 curved pods, which are inclined, sometimes with success, to 

 become moniliform. In this species of Acacia, as in the com- 

 mon China Tree, and in many other trees and shrubs, the blue 

 is much stronger than the yellow in the green of the leaves, 

 which gives to them a hue so dark as to make the hills, whose 

 slopes the species often covers, appear black in the distance. It 

 is this characteristic which has given the species the significant 

 common name of "Black Brush." A spreading small-flowered 

 Melampodium is here in cultivated fields. Riddellia tagetina, 

 a rather handsome composite, with bright yellow rays, bears 

 it company. The last-named species extends northward to 

 southern Kansas, where, in May, the prairies of Clark County 

 are yellow with its flowers. 



Extra-limital is a term which has become fashionable among 

 younger botanists. It is often used by those who ought to 

 know that they are using it with little propriety. Our knowl- 

 edge of the distribution and range of plants is constantly in- 

 creasing. Almost daily a remote and hitherto unknown 

 station for some species is discovered. It will soon be known 

 that few or none of our species are as restricted in their range 

 as the boundaries of a state. Wherever a species grows natu- 

 rally, and by naturally is meant disseminated without human 

 agency, and even then, if that fact be unknown, is the range 

 of the species. If found beyond its hitherto known range the 

 plants are no more extra-limital than the others. Some one 

 has extended the known range of the species by discovering 

 a new station for it. That is all. Cyclanthera dissecta grows 

 commonly in extreme northern Kansas. It grows throughout the 

 intervening country to Guatemala, according to S.Watson. Are 

 the plants of that species growing in northern Kansas, or those 

 growing in Guatemala, extra-limital ? Or was Texas or Mexico 

 the original seat of the species, and was it disseminated by its 

 burr-like fruit carried both northward and southward, in the 

 hairy coats of emigrant buffaloes ? All there is of it is the fact 

 that the known range of the species is from Guatemala, at least, 

 to the fortieth parallel, or near it, in Kansas. 



Large and vigorous individuals of Passiflora fcetida grow 

 on the banks of the ravine running through the city. The 

 Texas range of this tropical species, as now known, embraces 

 the region south and west of a line extending from Eagle Pass 

 to Beeville and Copano Bay. 



The species of Perezia have acquired by heredity, or by 

 atavism, the strange freak of developing tufts of wool at the 

 base of their stems underground, or along their stems above 

 ground. The wool borne by "P. Wrightii, which is also com- 

 mon around Eagle Pass, is fulvous. The spongy root of this 

 species, with the wool it bears, is sometimes used in domestic 

 practice to stop the flow of blood in new-made wounds. 



At Uvalde, and more commonly on the sandy bars of Nueces 

 River, Hymenoclea monogyra, a peculiar and handsome com- 

 posite, grows in great abundance. It is a smooth plant, fur- 

 nished with linear leaves, and capable, under favorable condi- 

 tions, of attaining a height of three to five feet, though it is 

 usually less tall. Its flowers are produced in great profusion — 

 the sterile ones in little clusters, which are surrounded by a 

 whorl of whitened membranous scales. The usually single 

 fertile flower has a similar involucre attached to the flower 

 itself. The little white scales of the involucres appear like 

 rays and give the species at anthesis a unique and attractive 

 appearance. 



Eastern Rubus trivialis, Mitreala petiolata, Cissus incisa 

 and Cissus stans reach the Rio Grande at this point. 



Eagle Pass, Texas. E. N. Plank. 



