,66 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 332. 



were borne sparingly on one-year-old growths, were from 

 three to three and a half inches in diameter and were of a 

 milky color, not so purely white as those of the Cherokee 

 Rose. The size of the flowers was something of a disap- 

 pointment, as they had been described as attaining a 

 diameter of six inches in their native country. This par- 

 ticular plant, however, has been allowed to produce many 

 shoots from the base instead of being trained to a single 

 stem, and Mr. Sturtevant thinks that when this is done and 

 the plant has grown older its flowering will be more satis- 

 factory. It is growing in a soil of stiff clay, and has had 

 little care or cultivation. 



Indigofera decora. — This is a half-shrubby little plant, 

 which is now bearing spikes of snow-white flowers three 

 or four inches long in the season when such flowers are 

 most welcome. It is a most desirable plant for the rockery 

 in midsummer, as it is dwarf and low, the foliage a clear 

 light green, and it keeps flowering for at least a month. It 

 would also be an admirable plant for the front of a shrub- 

 border or any other position where a low compact growth 

 is wanted. 



Ligustrum Ibota — This Privet, from north China and 

 Japan, which was figured in this journal (vol. vi., page 

 425), is certainly one of the best exotic shrubs which 

 have been introduced into our gardens for many years. It 

 is beautiful as a single specimen ; beautiful when massed 

 on a hill-side, as it is in the Arnold Arboretum ; beautiful 

 in a mixed shrubbery, and, in short, it is almost invaluable 

 in ornamental gardening. Its long, arching branches give 

 it a character altogether distinct from other Privets. The 

 pure white flowers are borne on pendulous clusters and 

 have a long and slender corolla-tube, and at this season 

 appear in great profusion. The foliage is good, and turns 

 to a dark rich color in autumn, while the dark purple fruit, 

 with a bluish bloom, gives the plant additional interest. It 

 will probably attain a height of eight to ten feet in this 

 country, and it does not seem to get scraggly with age, for, 

 although it flowers when it is very young, it flowers still 

 more abundantly as it becomes more mature. Large sprays 

 of it in flower are very graceful when used for decorative 

 purposes. It is not only perfectly hardy here, but seems 

 to take so kindly to our climate that it will probably be- 

 come naturalized as (he common Barberry has in New 

 England. 



A Double Ceanothus. — Our common Ceanothus Ameri- 

 canus, or New Jersey Tea, has begun to flower in this lati- 

 tude, and its light airy flowers at the end of its leafy shoots 

 make it an attractive plant, although it is one of the com- 

 monest of those found along the road-side thickets. A 

 double-flowered variety, which was received from Mr. 

 Lemoine under the name of C. hybridus flore pleno, is 

 now blooming in the Arnold Arboretum. It seems to be 

 perfectly hardy, and has the good foliage of our New Jer- 

 sey Tea, and will probably endure drought as well as our 

 native plant. But, in addition to this, it is much more florif- 

 erous and bears larger heads .of flowers, which are slightly 

 tinged with pink, and, altogether, seems to be an interest- 

 ing addition to the low shrubs which bloom at this season. 



Rhododendron arborescens. — This beautiful southern 

 Azalea, which was figured for the first time in Garden and 

 Forest, vol. i., page 401, has been planted to some extent 

 during a few years past, but it is still not yet nearly as 

 well known as its merits deserve. It is by no means a 

 new plant, as it was introduced into English gardens more 

 than three-quarters of a century ago, but it was probably 

 lost soon after, and for years it was hardly known in gar- 

 dens until it was distributed among many shrub collec- 

 tions in this country and abroad through the agency of the 

 Arnold Arboretum. The white or pink-tinged flowers are 

 set off by bright scarlet stamens and pistils, and are deli- 

 ciously fragrant. It is the latest of the Azaleas to bloom, 

 and although it is not found in a wild state north of Penn- 

 sylvania it' is perfectly hardy as far north as New England. 

 The plant needs no special treatment and flowers every 

 year. 



Cultural Department. 



Notes on Trees and Shrubs. 



THE species of Philadelphus, or Mock Orange, as generally 

 *■ found in gardens, seem to have hybridized to such an ex- 

 tent that it is not always easy, and, indeed, is often impossi- 

 ble, to specifically classify them. While there are not half a 

 dozen well-defined species which have been introduced into 

 gardens and cultivated, the varieties or forms offered by nur- 

 serymen are commonly very puzzling, and too often plants 

 with different names from various sources turn out to be 

 practically the same. 



The species most generally seen in cultivation is probably 

 the common Mock Orange, Philadelphus coronarius, a native 

 of parts of south Europe and of Asia, including Japan. Over 

 this wide range several botanical varieties have been created, 

 but they do not vary greatly from the type, or as much as the 

 horticultural hybrids. The other species in cultivation are all 

 natives of North America. P. inodorus, P. granditlorus and 

 P. hirsutus are natives of our southern states ; P. Lewisii and 

 P. Gordonianus are indigenous in the Rocky Mountain region, 

 while the curious small-leaved and small-flowered P. micro- 

 phyllus comes to us from the region of New Mexico, Arizona 

 and Colorado. 



Where two or more of these species are grown together 

 and blossom at about the same time there is reason to believe 

 that natural hybridization frequently takes place, and intentional 

 hybridization has been sometimes practiced. The species of 

 Philadelphus generally yield seeds in abundance, and these 

 freely germinate under favorable conditions, so that seedling 

 plants of Philadelphus often become a trouble and must be 

 treated as weeds. They will usually flower in three or four 

 years after the germination of the seeds. 



The flowers of P. coronarius are smaller than those of some 

 of our native species, but they are earlier. Plants grown from 

 seed from the Botanic Garden at St. Petersburg, Russia, re- 

 ceived under the name of P. coronarius Schrenkii, prove 

 about the earliest blossoming of all, although one or two 

 others are almost equally early. They generally begin to 

 open about the first week in June. Like all the flowers of this 

 species, they are strongly fragrant. They expand an inch or 

 a little more in diameter, and are light straw-colored rather 

 than pure white. A plant which came as seed from the Jardin 

 des Plantes, at Paris, under the name of P. coronarius ledifo- 

 lius, is not to be distinguished from it. 



Much more beautiful, though apparently belonging to the 

 same species, is a plant labeled P.speciosus, from the Roches- 

 ter nurseries of Ellwanger & Barry. The first flowers open 

 only two or three days later than the earliest sort ; they are 

 fragrant and about an inch and three-quarters in diameter, 

 with broad, nearly pure white petals. Except that they are 

 several days later in flowering, plants received from the Par- 

 sons nurseries, at Flushing, Long Island, under the names of 

 P. gracilis and P. magnificus, seem essentially the same as the 

 P. speciosus from Rochester, so that in the collection they may 

 be regarded as simply duplicates. 



A plant of P. speciosus from the Flushing nurseries differs 

 in flowering a little later, in having large, handsome, pure 

 white flowers, which expand two inches in diameter and 

 which have little or no odor. With the exception of the last- 

 named, all the plants mentioned apparently belong to the P. 

 coronarius group, and they are all characterized by a slender- 

 branched, broad-spreading form, rather than the stouter- 

 branched, stiffer, more erect and taller habit of one or more 

 other groups in common cultivation. 



Philadelphus granditlorus, received as such and grown from 

 seed collected in Ohio, has become fully twice as tall as P. 

 coronarius, and it not infrequently reaches a height of twenty 

 or more feet. Its stiff erect stems are not so well covered with 

 foliage on the lower portion as are the more drooping branches 

 of P. coronarius. In its blossoming, P. granditlorus is quite as 

 desirable as P. coronarius, its almost snow-white flowers being 

 produced in great abundance regularly every season. The 

 blossoms average about an inch and a half in diameter, have 

 large rounded petals and are odorous. The calyx-lobes and 

 under sides of the leaves are usually more or less covered 

 with distinct pubescence or hairs, while in P. coronarius the 

 calyces are usually glabrous, or nearly so. P. granditlorus is 

 later in blossoming, often being still in good full bloom when 

 all blossoms have fallen from the various forms of P. coro- 

 narius. 



Philadelphus pubescens, from Flushing, and P. Columbia- 

 nus, from Rochester, cannot be distinguished for horticultural 

 purposes from the P. granditlorus in the Arboretum collection. 



