August 8, 1S94.J 



Garden and Forest. 



3i; 



and solid Hyacinth-bulbs, and found Ihem fully six inches 

 in circumference — very large for this variety. They have 

 as yet experimented but sparingly with Lilies, for the 

 growth of which their soil seems to be specially adapted. 

 We are anxious to see Bermuda Lilies well tested in these 

 soils and this mild winter climate, and we expect that they 

 will surpass imported bulbs in size, though not in earli- 

 ness. Ascension Lilies grown here are well ripe in late 

 June, and this matter of early ripening will be appreciated 

 by those who understand the necessity of having time for 

 these bulbs to make a good fall growth before forcing for 

 winter, and of having bulbs close at hand with live roots 

 attached. Imported bulbs of this Lily are very low in 

 price, but we feel that the extra quality and condition of 

 our bulbs over the imported ones will, as soon as they are 

 known, cause them to command a better price. Years ago 

 we were told that American-grown Tuberose-bulbs could 

 never compete with the Italians, but we grew them, and 

 for a while got extra prices for them, and now who buys 

 Italian Tuberose-bulbs ? One grower showed me a thou- 

 sand Dutch Hyacinth-bulbs that compare very well with 

 the Dutch product. ' He is utterly unskilled in the peculiar 

 methods of developing these bulbs, but his first effort 

 shows that if we could get here the Dutch skill we might 

 compete with Holland even in their favorite product. But 

 the bulb industry seems to have started in North Carolina, 

 and it behooves our. seedsmen to be on the alert. 



Raleigh, N. C. W. F. MdSSCy. 



Botanical Notes from Texas. — XXII. 



NOTWITHSTANDING the drought, it has been a good year 

 for Juglans rupeslris. The ground under the trees ot lhat 

 species is nearly covered with its diminutive fruit. Mexicans call 

 the tree Nogal and Canon Nogal. A much-branched and leafy 

 shrub, resinous and viscid, with a not unpleasant odor, and 

 from three to six feet tall, and almost everywhere around Del 

 Rio, is Flourensia cernua. At this season of the year its 

 greenish nodding flower-clusters are mostly in fruit. It may 

 easily be recoenized by the leafy bracts of the involucres and 

 by its very villous achenes (fruits). In a little nook on the sunny 

 side of a dry irrigating ditch I discovered a handsome species 

 of Hoffmannseggia, with both flowers and fine fruit — a gen- 

 uine prize. 



In a ledge of limestone rocks, by the side of the railway, there 

 were several individuals of the rare and stange Macrosipho- 

 nia Berlandieri of the Indian Hemp family. This species is 

 remarkable, as the name of its genus makes known to us, for 

 its greatly elongated flower-tube, which is three to five inches 

 long. They had passed flowering, but their long, slender, 

 rounded fruit-pods were in good condition and abundant. The 

 apical coma of the oblong seeds in this species is copious in 

 quantity and fulvous in color. Close to San Felipe, where its 

 roots could drink as they pleased, I saw a single individual of 

 Eysenhardtia orthocarpa. This more western species is much 

 taller, sometimes becoming a tree, than its congener already 

 mentioned. It has more and larger leaflets, and larger straight 

 pods which become pendulous. 



Next to water and the grasses, Sotol, Dasylirion Texana, is 

 the richest gift that Nature has bestowed upon the stockmen 

 of western Texas. Indeed, were it not for the abundant 

 presence of Sotol and Nopal," the cattle and sheep of this re- 

 gion nearly all would have succumbed long ago to the 

 effects of dry weather, as until within a few days this entire 

 western region, it is said, has been passing through the longest 

 continued drought that has prevailed here in thirty years. Our 

 plant is a tall-growing member of the Lily family, attaining a 

 height of six to ten feet, and bearing a large panicle of small 

 yellowish flowers. It begins to appear near the parallel of Del 

 Rio, and becomes very abundant farther north. When pre- 

 paring to send up its flowering stems Sotol develops an im- 

 mense terminal bud, whose thick leaves and leaf-stems over- 

 lap each other so closely that they become blanched and 

 tender. In them the plant stores the starch and sugar neces- 

 sary for the development and growth of the flowers and fruit. 

 Cattle unassisted will live and thrive upon the Sotol-heads ; 

 but when ranchmen use them for feeding purposes the plants 

 are dug, their roots being very small, and piled, and the long, 

 narrow, sharply toothed leaves burned off, leaving the head 

 about the size and form of a large cabbage-head. In that con- 

 dition they are hauled in wagons sometimes ten or fifteen 



miles to the feeding-grounds, or are shipped from place to 

 place on the railway. Before being fed, the heads are sliced 

 with a Sotol axe, the wide, ivory-white and polished leaf-stems 

 separating. Sotol-heads are very nutritious and fattening. 

 They are said to make excellent well-marbled beef and mut- 

 ton. United States people sometimes cook and eat the ten- 

 derer portions of the heads. Mexicans have a way of roasting 

 them in an earth-pit. They also manufacture by distillation 

 an intoxicant from the juice of the plant, which, it is said, re- 

 sembles mescal in its taste and effects. 



It is well that I spoke kindly of the weather and the winter as 

 I did, for at the close of the same summer day, as I was sitting 

 in my room, with both its north door and its south door ajar, 

 suddenly the north door was forced open and the south door 

 slammed shut. I did not have time to look to see who my 

 rude caller was before a norther, with a howl, had entered the 

 room. The next morning the ground was frozen and ice was 

 abundant. These northers go howling on to the Gulf, blasting 

 and withering every tender thing they touch, killing the young 

 fruit and sometimes the trees themselves ; freezing the recent 

 wood of tender trees like the China and the Orange ; cutting 

 down the Corn when several feet tall, and sometimes forming 

 ice in the bays and harbors of the coast. The term "norther" 

 has become generic ; and Texas has the dry norther and the 

 wet norther, the latter species, of course, accompanied by 

 rain, sleet or snow. Texans generally seem to regard the wet 

 norther with more dread ; but I am inclined to think that the 

 dry species is the more destructive to vegetable, if not to ani- 

 mal, life. The air which it brings is so very dry that it quickly 

 absorbs all the heat and moisture that animals and men have 

 about them to spare, and then it searches for more, until it 

 draws with wonderful power upon vitality itself. Within a 

 short distance of the coast I have known the water in my 

 sleeping-room to freeze at night, and men have frozen to death 

 in the Gulf counties of the state. Storms of such extreme 

 severity are rare, but they are among the possibilities of Texas 

 weather. 

 Kansas City, Kansas. E. N. Plank. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Populus Monticola. 



IN the fourth volume of this journal a description and 

 figure (page 330, fig. 56) of this remarkable Poplar-tree, 

 discovered by Mr. T. S. Brandegee in Lower California, 

 were published. In the present issue we are able to repro- 

 duce a photograph made by Mr. Brandegee during a sub- 

 sequent visit to Lower California, representing the tree as 

 it appears in winter, growing near the summit of San Pedro 

 Martyr Mountain, the highest land in Lower California 

 (see page 31 5). The photograph was taken in October, 

 which is the end of the rainy season in Baja California, 

 when nearly all plants are in full leaf and flower, although 

 this Poplar, after the manner of the other species of the 

 genus, loses its leaves in the autumn to regain them in 

 early spring. 



The location of the tree represented in Mr. Brandegee's 

 photograph is a spring known as La Chuparosa, at an 

 elevation of about six thousand feet above the level of the 

 sea. The tree is nearly one hundred feet high, with a trunk 

 three feet in diameter. In Lower California, Populus Mon- 

 ticola is not very abundant, except in a few canons running 

 toward Todos Santos Bay, in some of which there are as 

 many as five hundred individuals. This species seems to 

 belong to elevated mountain regions, although it will grow 

 at lower elevations, there being fine specimens at San 

 Anila, nearly at the sea level, in the vicinity of San Jose 

 Del Cabo. More recently Populus Monticola lias been 

 discovered in Sonora on the western slopes of the Sierra 

 Madre. 



A tree that will flourish at the sea-level in tropical heat, 

 on mountain summits exposed to the frosts of winter, and 

 in the drier climate of Sonora, must have a robust constitu- 

 tion, and would seem well adapted to thrive in southern 

 California, where Populus Monticola would be handsomer 

 than any of the species native to the state and a much 

 more useful tree, for it produces comparatively hard light 

 reddish-colored wood, valued lor many purposes and suit- 

 able even for furniture. 



