2?6 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 333. 



leaves grow much larger. It has deep roots, which enable 

 it to endure drought, and it will be found attractive and 

 interesting in any shrubbery. 



Rose Crimson Rambler. — Plants of this Rose were not 

 received in America until late last autumn, and growers 

 who wished to work up a stock could hardly afford to take 

 the chance of losing them, and therefore few were left 

 out-of-doors during the winter to test their hardiness. The 

 Rose has bloomed in several commercial Rose-houses this 

 year and has fulfilled all that was expected of it as a free 

 and rapid grower, with good substantial foliage and abun- 

 dant flowers, which are of a rich color, without any tint of pur- 

 ple, and which last a long time when cut. We have heard 

 of some plants that came through the winter without any 

 protection, but so far as we know none of these have flow- 

 ered. It is to be hoped that the Crimson Rambler will prove 

 hardy because there are few good hardy climbing Roses, 

 and its large corymbose clusters of blood-red flowers, glow- 

 ing in the sunlight, would make it an admirable plant for the 

 decoration of porches. We have spoken of this Rose sev- 

 eral times within two years, and Mr. Watson gave its history 

 in one of his interesting weekly letters. It was brought 

 from Japan by an engineer named Smith, who sold it to a 

 Mr. Janner, of Edinburgh, from whom Mr. Turner pur- 

 chased it, leaving only one plant with Mr. Janner. It is 

 quite hardy in Scotland, and the original plant has attracted 

 much attention on the front of the dwelling-house of its 

 owner. The plant received a first-class certificate under 

 the name of "Engineer" from the Royal Horticultural 

 Society as long ago as 1890. It is one of the many forms 

 of Rosa multiflora, some of which are perfectly hardy and 

 some are not. Any one who has tested it out-of-doors will 

 confer a favor by reporting upon its behavior. 



Gladiolus aurantiacus. — This is among the earliest to 

 flower of the true species of this genus, which are not suf- 

 ficiently hardy to endure our winters. It has attractive 

 flowers of a reddish-orange shade on a lax spike, the small 

 inner segments being somewhatgreenish. They are of mod- 

 erate size, widely opened, and are borne somewhat sparsely. 

 G. Leichtlinii is a handsome species, with pure salmon- 

 colored flowers of the same general form and habit. 



The Gromwells. — We have in former volumes spoken of 

 Lithospermum prostratum as a valuable half-shrubby plant 

 for rock-work with the intensely blue flowers which charac- 

 terize several other members of the Borage family. It does 

 not seem to be perfectly hardy in the cold portions of the 

 country, for, although it will survive our winters, it seems 

 to get weaker, and finally dies out. Where it will live it 

 needs a warm dry place, and is then singularly pretty. 

 Some time ago one of our correspondents wrote of growing 

 it in a suspended pot, and as the stems are naturally of a 

 recumbent habit, they hung over the pot on all sides, com- 

 pletely hiding it with foliage and flowers. Our native spe- 

 cies, Lithospermum canescens and L. hirtum, are not often 

 grown, but the first has handsome hoary leaves and deep 

 yellow flowers in May. L. hirtum is also a useful plant 

 either on the front border or in the rockery, as it makes 

 a low growth and bears abundant racemes of deep chrome- 

 yellow flowers. Both plants have large thick roots, and yet 

 they seem to bear removal very well. 



Cultural Department. 



Notes on Trees and Shrubs. 



"THE latter part of June is the season in New England when 

 •^ the characteristics which separate the two hardy American 

 species of Catalpa, or Indian Bean, are most readily observed. 

 Generally, a good deal of difficulty is experienced in attempt- 

 ing to tell the difference between the old C. bignonioides or 

 C. syringifolia, or C. Catalpa, according to the revised nomen- 

 clature of Professor Sargent's Silva of North America, 

 and the more recently distinguished and described Catalpa 

 speciosa, which is now preferably planted on account of 

 its more hardy character and finer proportions as a timber 



and shade tree. Young trees of both species, seen now 

 in this region, may be instantly distinguished by the flow- 

 ering. C. speciosa has been in flower for the past two 

 or three weeks, and now (June 30) about the last of the 

 flowers are falling. The nearly pure white corollas are more 

 than two inches across and quite two inches from the end of 

 the lip to the base of the tube. The bottom of the tube and 

 its entrance are strongly marked with two bands of yellow 

 blotches and numerous small purplish dots and lines. The 

 calyx-lobes are of a rich purplish-red color. The flowers are 

 produced in large, loose few-flowered panicles, and they have 

 a delicate sweet odor. 



Although these blossoms are now fading away the flower- 

 buds of the better-known Catalpa Catalpa are yet quite small 

 and are not likely to expand for two weeks yet, so that it may be 

 said there is a month's difference in the time of first flowering 

 of the trees. The flowers of C. Catalpa are smaller, much 

 more numerous and crowded in the panicle, and the panicles 

 are smaller than those of C. speciosa. Both species are well 

 worth planting as ornamental flowering trees, aside from their 

 value for shade or other purposes. They begin to blossom 

 freely when not more than eight or ten years old from seed 

 and bear flowers annually afterward. 



Outside of the flowers, other less marked specific differ- 

 ences are found in the generally smaller size of the leaves 

 of C. Catalpa and their peculiar disagreeable odor when 

 bruised, whereas there is little or none of this odor in the 

 leaves of C. speciosa. The bean-like pods, too, of C. speciosa 

 average longer than those of C. Catalpa, often being eighteen 

 or twenty inches long. The most important point of interest 

 to northern cultivators of these trees is found in the fact that 

 C. speciosa-is much the hardier of the two species. Growing 

 side by side in the Arboretum during the past eight years, C. 

 speciosa has, without exception, been alive to the tips of its 

 branches at the end of every winter, while the longer-known 

 species has been more or less killed each year. This applies 

 to young plants particularly, for, as the trees get older, they 

 become well established and seem perfectly hardy. In some 

 situations even in this climate they may not show any unusual 

 lack of hardiness when young. Something also depends on 

 the locality whence the seed is procured. That C. Catalpa is 

 hardy here is proved by the fine specimens to be seen about 

 Boston. 



Compared with many other kinds of deciduous trees, the 

 Catalpas may be considered as fast growers. A group of eight 

 trees of Catalpa speciosa which were planted on a gravelly 

 hill-side averaged about five feet high when they were set out 

 in the spring of 1886. They have been allowed to branch out 

 at four or five feet from the ground, and now have trunks 

 eight or ten inches, or in one specimen a foot, in diameter, and 

 average nearly twenty-five feet high. An equal number of the 

 less hardy species planted at the same time in the same situa- 

 tion, and of the same size when set out, can hardly be com- 

 pared with the C. speciosa, as all but two of the original plants 

 have been replaced by others, and the remaining plants have 

 a diseased and stunted appearance on account of frequent and 

 severe injury in winter. During most of the time since these 

 trees were set out grass or hay has been allowed to grow 

 about them. The soil not being rich, the trees were originally 

 planted in specially prepared holes filled with good soil in 

 order that they might have a good start. 



Catalpa ovata, better known as C. Kaempferi, a Chinese 

 species, comes into blossom as the flowers of C. speciosa 

 are falling away, so that it fills the gap between the ex- 

 tremes of flowering of our native species. Its flowers are 

 small, expanding scarcely more than an inch across, and are 

 numerously produced in rather small compact panicles. These 

 flowers are of a distinctly pale yellow color, marked by the two 

 orange-colored bands characteristic of Catalpa flowers, and 

 heavily spotted with purplish- black dots and lines around 

 the mouth and interior of the tube. While they are inter- 

 esting they are not nearly so handsome as the much larger 

 and almost pure white blossoms of our native species. In 

 winter, C. ovata may be readily distinguished from its Amer- 

 ican congeners by the much smaller, more slender and much 

 more numerous pods which hang on the branches. It is a 

 slower-growing and smaller tree than our species. 



Catalpas maybe very easily raised from seeds, which, if not 

 allowed to become too dry after ripening, will germinate 

 readily within three or four weeks after planting. They should 

 have a very slight covering of soil, and will soon germinate 

 when lying on top of the ground if it is kept moist and shaded. 

 The cotyledons, or seed-leaves, are very deeply divided, so that 

 as they expand the little plantlet, at first sight, seems to have 

 four rounded or obovate leaves. 



Arnold Arboretum. J • Cr. Jack, 



