August 15 1S94.] 



Garden and Forest. 



323 



The receptacle and fruit are among the best distinctions, 

 and in critical cases may be about the only one. They are 

 oblong to obovate. The fruit of those growing in the 

 vicinity of Chicago is prevailingly oblong. Those I have 

 seen from Vermillion Lake, Minnesota, had nearly always 

 obovate fruit ; though most specimens are readily distin- 

 guished from R. blanda, intermediate forms occur which 

 are very puzzling and seem to connect the two. In this 

 vicinity I have only met with it in the sand region at the 

 head of Lake Michigan. It is one of the handsomest of 

 the wild Roses, and well deserves a place in the garden. 



Rosahumilis is a shrub with smooth, sleek-looking leaves, 

 which become rather shining when they are thickish. The 

 leaflets are usually oval, with an acute or acutish base and 

 apex. The margin is furnished with teeth, which are apt to 

 be coarser and more dentate in form than those of R. blanda, 

 with which it is most likely to be confounded in some of 

 its forms. But the foliage is generally shaded a darker 

 green. The stems as well as branches are more or less 

 rough, with acicular prickles. The so-called infra-stipular 

 spines are in nearly all cases which I have noticed a pair 

 of prickles longer and more strongly developed than others 

 on the stems, though they themselves may be rather weak. 

 The sepals are more or less divided or with narrow appen- 

 dages along the sides. Individual flowers may not have 

 these appendages, but they are the rule, just as their ab- 

 sence is the rule in R. blanda, in which they occasionally 

 occur. The sepals are glandular hispid, but the receptacle 

 is quite as apt to be smooth as glandular. The calyx is 

 reflexed after flowering, and the parts soon fall away from 

 the fruit. The stipules are rather long and are narrower 

 than those of R. blanda. The leaf-structure is quite well 

 defined, being finely reticulate, the thinner leaves readily 

 transmitting light and displaying the fine network. This 

 structure of the leaves, together with the less prominence 

 of the principal veins, is often a good way to distinguish 

 R. humilis from smoother-leaved forms of R. blanda. 

 R. humilis is a low bush, six inches to two feet high, or 

 occasionally three or more feet. It is very common in dry 

 ground, especially of the sand-ridges of our Pine-barren 

 region. The flowers are of about the same size as those of 

 R. blanda, but generally of a deeper shade of rose. 



Rosa Carolina is one of the best-defined species, and is 

 nearly always easily distinguished. Sometimes it resem- 

 bles taller forms of R. humilis, but the pair of rather stout 

 and commonly hooked prickles on the stems below the in- 

 sertion of the leaves, and their general absence from other 

 parts of the stem, together with its different habit and place 

 of growth, readily indicate the species. The leaflets are 

 oblong to oblong-lanceolate, and are mostly longer and 

 narrower than those of any Rose I find in this region. It 

 is the tallest of our upright Roses, being sometimes ten 

 feet high. As the bushes grow in clumps and are very 

 floriferous, it is an exceedingly showy Rose when in full 

 bloom. No other Rose forms such dense masses, fre- 

 quently covering quite extensive areas of open and hum- 

 mocky swamp-lands. The bushes again become very 

 attractive in autumn and early winter with their numerous 

 bright red or scarlet hips. 



Rosa setigera, the Prairie or Climbing Rose, is the best 

 marked of any of our wild Roses. The stems do not in 

 any proper sense climb, but rather clamber over bushes, 

 rocks or whatever support may be at hand. Resting on 

 such supports the long stems may run on till they reach 

 the lower branches of neighboring trees and crowd in 

 among them. More frequently they are without support, 

 except as they arch over and rest upon the ground, along 

 which they may trail for a considerable distance. This is 

 the common habit in open places, where the stems, arch- 

 ing every way from the central root, form heaps or mounds 

 of foliage several feet across. The shoots of the year 

 make a rapid and extensive growth, ten feet or more being 

 not uncommon in a single season. It is our most briery 

 Rose, the stems being very rough with strong hooked 

 prickles. The leaflets are also larger than those of other 



species, and are of a lively green color. The flowers are 

 large and bright, but with little fragrance. The Climbing 

 Rose is rare in the region about Chicago, being mostly 

 found in the Desplaines valley growing along the banks of 

 the river and its affluents, or in the more open spaces of 

 bordering woods. It is most at home in a fertile soil and 

 in spots where it receives a fair supply of sunlight. 



Another Rose of the sand region at the head of Lake 

 Michigan has a strong resemblance to Rosa Arkansana, 

 though not in all respects agreeing with typical forms as 

 described or such as I have examined in herbaria. It 

 forms a low bush ten to twenty inches high. The steins 

 are very thickly covered with straight or curved prickles, 

 which are rather strong. The leaflets are five to nine, oval 

 to oblong-obovate, thickish, usually smooth and somewhat 

 shining. The midribs beneath are sometimes provided 

 with small prickles and glandular hairs. The narrow sti- 

 pules are glandular-toothed or ciliate. It has a persistent 

 calyx, which is glandular hispid, as also the receptacle, 

 usually. The fruit is globular, reddish or yellowish. 

 Though R. Arkansana is more common west of the Mis- 

 sissippi, it comes into the Lake region about Lake Supe- 

 rior, and is also found in the northern part of the southern 

 peninsula of Michigan, and seems to re-appear at the 

 southern extremity of Lake Michigan. It has only been 

 detected in this vicinity in quite dry sand, attention being 

 first called to it by its prickly stems and habit of persistent 

 flowering till September. • 



Chicago, 111. -£• /• Hill. 



Infertile Trees and Shrubs. 



IT does not seem to be generally recognized that indi- 

 vidual trees and shrubs vary greatly in fertility. Among 

 some White Oaks in the woods we occasionally find trees 

 that scarcely ever bear an acorn, while in the same season 

 we find other trees loaded to profusion ; and what is true 

 of the Oak is true of other trees and shrubs. We have 

 been frequently annoyed after planting out specimens on 

 our grounds, in order especially to have home-grown seeds, 

 to find the trees or bushes eventually prove infertile. Oc- 

 casionally a plant is introduced into cultivation which hap- 

 pens to be an infertile individual, and others propagated 

 from this naturally carry infertility with them. This has 

 been found true with the plant known as the Sweet Shrub, 

 Calycanthus floridus. Old plants in cultivation rarely pro- 

 duce seeds ; in fact, I do not know that I ever saw perfect 

 seed of this from these plants. Another species is often 

 grown for the Calycanthus floridus, which does occasion- 

 ally produce seeds. * 



The Rose acacia Robinia hispida, in cultivation, has 

 never been known to produce perfect seed-vessels — the 

 plants in cultivation having evidently been raised from one 

 early introduced individual. Mr. H. P. Kelsey, of Kawana, 

 North Carolina, tells me that there are frequently plants 

 found wild in that vicinity that are very fertile. Occasion- 

 ally this infertility has been taken as a mark of hybridity. 

 Dr. Engelmann once found an Oak with partially entire 

 leaves, and yet with some of the characters of the Pin Oak, 

 which, in his monograph on American Oaks, he styles 

 Quercus palustri-imbricaria, considering it a hybrid be- 

 tween two species, because of the combination of the char- 

 acters of these two. He was the more led to believe in the 

 hybridity because the tree never produced any seed ; but 

 on one occasion he found a solitary acorn. This acorn he 

 gave to me, and thetree I raised from it has now been in 

 bearing for several years, producing an enormous crop of 

 acorns, in no way differing from those of the common 

 Pin Oak. 



It is well to recognize this difference in fertility in indi- 

 viduals where the fruiting character is particularly desired. 

 Some additional care is required to exclude sterile trees. 



Germantown, Pa. Thomas J/cc/hlll. 



* Plants common in gardens ot recent 

 ferred to Calycanthus laevigatas. 



years, and fruit-hearing, are to he re- 



