September'i2, 1894.] 



Garden and Forest. 



363 



1st, when the hot dry wind that had been blowing all day 

 from the south-west increased to a gale, and in some locali- 

 ties became a hurricane. The air was filled with combus- 

 tible dust and the gases distilled by smouldering fires, so 

 that to the smallest burning leaf or twig on a tree-top a 

 great flame seemed attached, and large masses of flame 

 would often break away from all contact with fixed mate- 

 rial, whirl through the air for long distances and ignite the 

 leaves in other tree-tops so quickly that it seemed almost 

 a spontaneous combustion. Nothing that could burn was 

 safe within half a mile of the forest, as was proved by the 

 burning of villages, railroad-trains, cross-ties in the track, 

 and the loss of many human lives. 



The number of persons killed is at this date, September 

 3d, impossible to ascertain, but will possibly reach a thou- 

 sand in Carlton and Pine counties. Thousands of cattle 

 have also perished, millions of acres of timber have been 

 killed, an inestimable amount of timber and lumber have 

 been burned, and the promising growth of young forest 

 and its valuable influences have been destroyed. The lat- 

 ter item is usually not considered or is placed at a very low 

 value, but in far-reaching and true economy it should rank 

 next to the loss of human life. 



The entire disaster was due to man's ignorance, care- 

 lessness and viciousness, and was, therefore, preventable 

 by instruction, caution and coercion. 

 Carlton, Minn. H. B. Ayres. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



Rhododendron Fordii. — This is a new species from Lan- 

 tas Island, Kwangtung, China, having been discovered 

 and introduced by Mr. Ford, the superintendent of the Bo- 

 tanic Garden, Hong Kong, after whom it was named, and 

 described in the Kew Bulletin by Mr. Hemsley in January 

 last. It is related to R. Fortunei and has dark green leathery 

 obovate leaves, three inches long, clothing woody branches, 

 which are terminated by loose clusters of five-lobed ten- 

 stamened flowers two inches across. It is likely to prove 

 hardy and promises to be a useful addition to the Chinese 

 representatives of this genus in cultivation. 



Saintpaulia ionantha. — I again refer to this delightful 

 little African Gesneriad to recommend it for its free growth 

 and free-flowering character in an ordinary stove, and also 

 to inform your readers that it is easily multiplied by means 

 of leaf-cuttings. Every leaf put in now will form a good 

 plant by next summer. 



Scutellaria Formosana. — From what I know of this new 

 species there is little chance that it will ever justify its de- 

 scription as a good plant for decorative purposes. It is a 

 native of Formosa and has been introduced by Messrs. 

 J. Veitch & Sons, with whom I saw it in flower a few days 

 ago. It has straggling stems a foot long, ovate leaves 

 nearly two inches long, and terminal erect racemes, four 

 inches long, of slender tubular flowers an inch long, colored 

 blue and white. 



DraCjEna Godseffiana. — Having flowered and fruited, 

 this plant has been accepted by Mr. Baker as a good species 

 allied to D. surculosa, with which some authorities last 

 year tried to prove it identical. It is a distinct plant, at 

 present only a foot high, with obovate cuspidate leaves 

 three inches long, colored bright green, with cream-yellow 

 spots, suggesting the variegation of Aucuba Japonica. The 

 flowers are small and greenish and the fruit is a round 

 berry an inch in diameter, colored rich orange when ripe. 

 It is a native of Lagos. 



Thunbergia grandiflora is not a new plant, but it is so 

 rarely grown that a well-flowered example of it, such as 

 may be seen in a stove at Kew, excites as much admira- 

 tion, even among cultivators, as if it were a new introduc- 

 tion. Planted out in good soil and trained along the rafters 

 so that finally its shoots can down-hang a yard or two, 

 it becomes a picture of great beauty when the flowers, 

 borne in axillary clusters, hang as thick as bunched 



onions. Each flower is three inches long and broad, and 

 its color is lilac-blue, paler in the throat. There is also in 

 flower at Kew a variety of it with pure white flowers. The 

 type was introduced from India, where it is a native, in 

 1820, but the variety has only recently been introduced to 

 Kew from Calcutta. We have no better stove climbers than 

 these two, nor any more easily cultivated. 



Streptocarpuses. — These plants are being greatly im- 

 proved every year under the skillful cross-breeding and 

 selection of Messrs. J. Veitch & Sons. This year their 

 seedlings are beautiful, much finer than any hitherto pro- 

 duced, the range of color being greater and the size of the 

 blooms larger ; moreover, the plants have well-balanced 

 leafage. Some of the seedlings have flowers of the clearest 

 rose-red, with dark pencilings in the throat, one seedling 

 in particular being of the clearest crimson color. There 

 are numerous variations among the whites, purples and 

 blues. Messrs. Veitch grow these plants in thousands, 

 planted out in a large lean-to frame facing south. They 

 seed freely, and the seeds are mixed and sold so that a 

 packet would contain all the colors at present raised. The 

 great value of these Streptocarpuses is in their thriving 

 well and flowering freely in a stove, intermediate or cool 

 greenhouse. They are better planted in a border than when 

 grown in pots. 



Fuchsias and Tuberous Begonias. — One of the most at- 

 tractive houses in the Veitchian nurseries at Chelsea is filled 

 with Fuchsias and Begonias. The Fuchsias are trained 

 along the rafters, which they completely hide with their 

 shoots, and the flowers hang in arch-like festoons over the 

 Begonias, which crowd the stages, and comprise all the 

 colors and all the best forms of these plants. Nothing 

 looks, and nothing is, easier than the production of a dis- 

 play of this kind, and the plants look perfectly at home. 

 Fuchsias are not utilized as rafter or roof climbers to the 

 extent that they deserve. At Kew they are a feature in the 

 conservatory, where they are planted out in the side bor- 

 ders and their stems trained along the rafters up to the 

 ridge. The lateral shoots are cut in hard every spring, and 

 this induces the plants to develop plenty of shoots, which 

 are semi-pendent, and flower profusely. 



An Improved Greenhouse. — The gridiron-like stages over 

 rows of hot-water pipes and the red flower-pot are the ugly 

 features of the ordinary plant-house. But these may be 

 improved upon by the adoption of the plan of two houses 

 in the nursery of Messrs. J. Veitch & Sons, one for the dis- 

 play of Orchids when in flower, the other for choice green- 

 house-plants. The inside of the house is a series of irregu- 

 lar rockeries and masses of virgin cork forming numerous 

 pockets and ledges, the whole being "toned'' with the 

 clinging stems of Ficus minima, Selaginellas, Pellionias, 

 and such like plants, with tufts of Ferns here and there. 

 These form a most effective background to the special 

 things on exhibition, which, although mostly in pots, are 

 cunningly hidden under Fern-fronds, the effect being a 

 perfectly natural arrangement, infinitely more pleasing as 

 a picture than the ordinary house, while each plant is seen 

 to the best advantage. A slight modification of this ar- 

 rangement would make the best of all indoor styles of gar- 

 dening, for the amateur, at any rate. 



The Temperate House at Kew. — A photograph of the in- 

 terior of this fine house was published in Garden and 

 Forest in 1892, page 401, and the dimensions and his- 

 tory of the house were given in a note which I wrote to 

 accompany it. Only a portion of the original design was 

 carried out in 1863, when the present house was built, but, 

 even as it stands, the structure is probably the finest ever 

 erected for the cultivation of temperate plants. It has now 

 been decided to finish the house, which will mean an addi- 

 tion equal to about half of its present dimensions, and the 

 cost of which will be j£ 12,000. The total length of the 

 completed building will be 582 feet, and its superficies 

 nearly 50,000 feet, or one and three-quarter acres. It will 

 stand on a terrace four feet high, and will consist of a cen- 

 tre connected with two wings by two smaller octagonal 



