444 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 350. 



Mr. Rolfe has been prepared for publication in the Kciv 

 Bulletin. It has a creeping rhizome, oblong, three-angled 

 pseudo-bulbs two inches long, e;ich bearing a pair of 

 leathery leaves five inches long and one inch wide. The 

 scape is eighteen inches long, bent at right angles two- 

 thirds of the way up, the upper third being clothed with 

 closely set imbricating chaff-like scales, from among which 

 the purple-black flowers are developed in slow succession. 

 The segments are half an inch long. The scape without 

 the flowers is not unlike an ear of corn. 



Bulbophyllum saurocephalum is another strange-looking 

 Orchid. It has a purple club-shaped inflorescence four 

 inches long with small purplish striped flowers scattered 

 over the thickened portion, suggesting a crowd of small 

 flies at rest or at "feed." 



Miltoxia Bluntii, var. Lubbersii, is one of the best of 

 the Miltonias. The type is said to be a natural hybrid 

 between M. spectabilis and M. Clowesii, and it was intro- 

 duced in 1879. The variety was first flowered in the 

 Botanic Garden at Brussels in 1887, when it was named in 

 compliment to the curator. It has flowers nearly four 

 inches across, the sepals and petals colored cream-yellow, 

 heavily blotched with purplish brown, and the large 

 patent lip purple at the base, the front part nearly white. 



Maxillaria mirabilis is a new introduction of which a 

 figure and description are published in the last number of 

 Lindenia. It looks very near M. fucata, which was described 

 by Reichenbach in 1886, and supposed to be from Ecuador. 

 Monsieur Cogniau, however, recognizes this similarity, but 

 says M. mirabilis is richer and deeper in color, and has 

 smaller pseudo-bulbs. The flowers are two inches across, 

 and colored bright orange-yellow and crimson, with brown 

 spots. It is a most attractive Orchid. 



Oxcidium incurvum is one of the best garden Orchids in 

 the genus, as, unlike many Oncidiums, it keeps in health 

 from year to year in an ordinary greenhouse, and every 

 autumn it sends up long elegant racemes of pretty flowers. 

 At Kew a plant now in flower has racemes six feet long, 

 with numerous branches, usually in pairs and five inches 

 long, each branch bearing from six to nine flowers, which 

 are an inch across, the segments reflexed and the color 

 white and bright purple. The flowers last several weeks. 



Eria stellata is an old garden Orchid, supposed to have 

 been introduced from Java, and described and figured by 

 Dr. Lindley. It is one of the best of the genus, growing 

 well and flowering freely in a stove, the racemes erect, of 

 about the same floral effect as a Roman Hyacinth, the 

 flower-segments being nearly an inch long, pure white and 

 fragrant. It flowers every autumn. There is a figure of it 

 in the Botanical Magazine, t. 360s. 



London. W. WaiSOn. 



Plant Notes. 



^Esculus parviflora. 



THE Dwarf Buckeye, properly called ^Esculus parvi- 

 flora, is probably best known to horticulturists by 

 the name of M. macrostachya or Pavia macrostachya. 

 This Buckeye is, in its season of bloom, one of the most 

 effective shrubs on a lawn, and it is still too rarely seen in 

 our gardens. There is a generally prevalent idea that the 

 plant is an exotic, a native of China or Japan, whereas it is 

 indigenous and peculiar to certain parts of our southern 

 states, although quite hardy when transplanted into most 

 of our northern states, and in central Europe. 



It is never a tree, but is sometimes quite a large shrub. 

 In its native habitat, in the higher districts of Georgia and 

 South Carolina, it may vary irom three or four to nine or 

 ten feet high, according to situation and environment. It 

 may be trained to grow taller, but under ordinary circum- 

 stances in cultivation it is usually a broadly spreading 

 shrub from six to eight or ten feet high. The stems are 

 usually numerous, the outermost and lowest often becom- 

 ing horizontal and resting on the ground, the central stems 

 being erect, so that a well-grown plant assumes a broad 



dome-shaped form. The branches which rest on the 

 ground form roots very readily, and thus new plants are 

 established, so that a single individual may in time spread 

 itself over a wide area and appear very much broader in 

 the diameter than in the height of its branching. The il- 

 lustration on page 445 of a plant in a Massachusetts garden 

 fairly represents the appearance of a plant under ordinary 

 conditions, when it has reached an age of twelve or fifteen 

 years. 



The leaves of jEsculus parviflora are usually composed 

 of five obovate, finely, but bluntly, serrated leaflets, smooth 

 above and densely pale tomentose beneath. They are 

 thin, and borne on long, rather slender, petioles. They 

 are abundant enough to give a good covering to the stems, 

 and they appear to be comparatively free from blemish by 

 attacks of insects or fungi. 



On the ends of the stems, above the dome of foliage, are 

 produced the slender cylindrical, erect, raceme-like panicles 

 or spikes of flowers. The spikes are often much more than 

 a foot in length, but the length may vary on different indi- 

 viduals, and according to the conditions under which they 

 are grown. In full bloom the plant is a most interesting 

 and handsome object. The single blossom is small, the 

 conspicuous portion being composed of four slender white 

 petals, wdh about seven thread-like stamens, which some- 

 times protrude more than an inch beyond the tips of these 

 petals. The lowest flowers on the cluster are the first to 

 open, and they gradually expand during several weeks, 

 exhaling a slight sweet fragrance, and proving very attrac- 

 tive to many kinds of insects. A great merit of this shrub 

 is its habit of blossoming after the majority of woody plants 

 have passed their flowering stage. In this latitude bloom- 

 ing may begin in early July and be continued well into 

 August, according to the situations in which the plants 

 are placed. 



In northern gardens it is usual to find comparatively few 

 fruits produced as a result of the innumerable blossoms. 

 These fruits are smooth on the outside, and not prickly like 

 those of the Horse-chestnut, and each generally contains a 

 single seed. Very often the seeds do not ripen, being 

 checked by frost. 



This Dwarf Buckeye may be propagated by its ripe seeds, 

 which should either be planted at once in the open ground 

 or kept in moist earth through the winter. They should 

 never be allowed to become really dry. The habit of the 

 plant naturally suggests the facility of propagation by lay- 

 ering, and new stock may be obtained from cuttings. 



.Esculus parviflora is the only white-flowered shrubby 

 species in cultivation, but .Esculus Pavia, of the southern 

 states, is another shrubby Buckeye. Its flowers, how- 

 ever, are bright red, and more like those of our ordinary 

 red-flowering Buckeyes, with stamens but slightly show- 

 ing outside of the petals. This plant is rarely tried in 

 northern gardens, although when procured from the higher 

 altitudes of its native habitat, it might prove hardy in many 

 of the northern states. t r t h 



Arnold Arboretum. y* er* JaCK. 



Vaccinium corymbosum. — Our woods would lose much of 

 their beauty in autumn if they were deprived of the under- 

 growth of various Ericaceous plants, and none of these are 

 more brilliant at this season than the High Bush Blueberry, 

 often seen in great masses in deep swamps and moist 

 woods. It flourishes also in open pastures and along 

 roadsides, but rarely attains in such positions a height of 

 more than three or four feet. At its best it is a stout, wide- 

 spreading bush, eight or ten feet high, or even more, and 

 in the last part of October its scarlet leaves are fairly 

 dazzling, and these glowing colors are retained for a month. 

 In fact, it is a beautiful shrub at any season : in this lati- 

 tude m late May and early June it is decorated with large 

 white bell-shaped flowers, borne on the extremities of the 

 branches of last year's growth ; later on its abundant fruit 

 is beautiful, grateful to the taste and wholesome, and it is 

 unsurpassed in the splendors of its autumn colors. It is 



