5oo 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 355. 



were ail manner of tastes, and every Israelite found in it what 

 his palate was chiefly pleased with. If he desired fat in it, he 

 had it. In it the young men tasted bread, the old men honey, 

 and the children oil"; but all found in it substance and 

 strength. So with Nature. In her are all manner of tastes — 

 science, art, poetry, utility, and good in all. The botanist has 

 one pleasure, the ornithologist another, the explorer another, 

 the walker and sportsman another ; what all may have is the 

 refreshment and exhilaration which come from a loving and 

 i ntelligent scrutiny of her manifold works. 



Notes. 



Parts 106, 107 and 108 of Engler & Prantl's Die Natitrlichen 

 Pflanzenfamilien have lately reached us. They contain the 

 completion of Cactaceee, by Schumann ; the elaboration of 

 Geissolomacese, Penaeaceae, Oliniaceee, Thymelaeacese and 

 Ela?a°-naceae, by Gilg ; Gesneriaceas and Columelliacese, by 

 Karl Fritsch, and the Bignoniaceag, by Schumann. 



Since the first pages of this issue went to press we have 

 received from Mr. Michael Barker a description of Iris Var- 

 tani, which is now in flower at the experiment-station gardens 

 in Ithaca. The bulbs were received from Mr. W. A. Manda, 

 potted late in October and placed in a cool, though sunny, 

 o-reenhouse. These flowers, like those sent here by Mr. 

 Gerard, and noticed on page 496, exhale a very distinct and 

 pleasant odor. 



Four car-loads of fruit from California last week must come 

 very near to finishing the shipments of fresh fruit across the 

 continent. Emperor grapes are still abundant. California 

 quinces of excellent quality may be had, and strawberries are 

 so plentiful that they are sold on the street-stands at fifty cents 

 a box. Kumquats, from Florida, bring twenty-five cents a 

 dozen, and garden pineapples, from Florida, are $1.00 apiece. 

 Large ripe grape-fruits sell at $2.00 a dozen, and Spanish pome- 

 granates, of as good quality as they are ever seen here, can be 

 had for a dollar a dozen. 



Among the large variety of pears now offered in this city is 

 Forelle, or German Trout, from California, a showy, late pear, 

 long and slender in form. Others are the perfumed Bosc, with 

 its bright bronze, almost golden color ; the greenish yellow 

 Cornice, with its russet dots ; the lemon-yellow Beurre Diel ; 

 the fine-grained, 'buttery Winter Nelis ; the white-fleshed 

 Virgalien and the juicy and aromatic little Dana's Hovey, the 

 quality of which is so exquisite that the best of them cost as 

 much as those three times as large. Besides these there are 

 the Sheldon, Clairgeau, Glout Morceau, Anjou, Lawrence and 

 many more, since cold storage makes it possible to keep the 

 autumn varieties well into winter. 



To a correspondent of The American Florist, who complains 

 that apparently healthy plants of the white-flowered Swainsonia 

 galegifolia drop nearly all their buds before they open, Mr. 

 Edwin Lonsdale replies that these plants resent overfeeding 

 with liquid fertilizer. When the soil is at all rich even small 

 amounts of weak manure-water cause the flower-buds to 

 drop. What they need is liberal root-room and a porous, or, 

 at least, a well-drained soil. Mr. Lonsdale tells florists that the 

 flowers' of Swainsonia, above those of almost any other plant, 

 ought to be cut some time before they are placed in the hands 

 of retail customers. If cut and placed in a dark refrigerator or 

 cellar until thoroughly cooled and filled with moisture they 

 will last for a long time. 



A correspondent of the Gardeners' Chronicle, in writing 

 about the Coreans, whom he considers intellectually a sort of 

 inferior Chinamen, says that they by no means neglect flower- 

 gardening. A pond thickly set with Lotus is the most com- 

 mon form of decorative planting practiced by them, but the 

 Chrysanthemum is also grown to perfection, and a festival in 

 honor of this plant is the most popular of their annual celebra- 

 tions. Those who are able to do so, cultivate it under frames 

 covered with oiled paper, which is an excellent way of get- 

 ting good flowers. It is in comparatively recent times that 

 European gardeners discovered the secret of growing large 

 flower-heads by training plants to single stems and single 

 flowers, but the Coreans have practiced this system for cen- 

 turies. 



Mr. Robert Douglas, writing to Medians' Monthly, gives it 

 as his opinion that climate has considerable to do with the 

 fragrance of flowers, and that Mignonette, Roses and Azaleas, 

 etc., are not as fragrant here as they are in England, and that 

 they are not as fragrant in the western states as in New Eng- 



land. Carrying this theory a little farther, he observes that 

 the White Spruce from Maine and Lower Canada has such a 

 strong odor that it is called the Skunk Spruce, while the odor 

 of the same tree in the drier atmosphere of Minnesota is not 

 nearly as pungent, and this Spruce when found on the summit 

 of Terry's Peak, in the Black Hills, exhaled no odor whatever, 

 and Mr. Douglas was compelled to rub a twig with its foliage 

 and bruise it in his hand before he could catch the distinctive 

 smell. 



The Trustees of the Missouri Botanical Gardens announce 

 that there is a scholarship to be awarded in that institution 

 before the first of April next. Preliminary examinations will . 

 be held on March 5th at the Botanical Garden, but persons who 

 live remote from St. Louis can send their applications, and 

 arrangements under certain conditions may be made for a 

 competitive examination before the principal of some high 

 school near the home of the applicant. All applicants will be 

 examined in English grammar, reading, writing and spelling, 

 arithmetic and geography, and, in case of a competition, -in 

 other studies, including history, literature, botany and physi- 

 ology. Any one who cares to secure one of these scholar- 

 ships or who wishes to enter the garden as a pupil without 

 any of the special scholarship grants can find all the needed 

 information by applying to Professor William Trelease, the 

 Director. 



Dr. J. H. Mellichamp, of Bluffton, South Carolina, sends us 

 a note relative to a tree of the rare Ogeechee Lime, Nyssa 

 Ogeechee, growing on high sandy land on the old Hardee plan- 

 tation, near South May River, in Beaufort County, South Caro- 

 lina, that was brought from the Ogeechee swamps by Mr. 

 Hardee fifty or sixty years ago as a little tree, and planted in 

 a Corn or Cotton field. " It seems remarkable," Dr. Melli- 

 champ writes, " that this water-loving swamp tree should have 

 so flourished in sandy land and attained such dimensions. It 

 is now a beautiful, and, in some respects, a most peculiar- 

 looking tree, and is in perfect vigor, looking as if it could live 

 for a hundred years longer. Its height is supposed to be 

 about thirty feet ; the trunk girths six feet one inch at three 

 feet from the ground, and at the height of seven feet divides 

 into three very large limbs." This is certainly one of a very 

 few plants of this rare species in cultivation, and perhaps the 

 only one, although it is said to have been sent to Europe in 

 1806 by the English botanist, John Lyon. 



Of the Chrysanthemums on sale in this city Mrs. Jerome 

 Jones, Minnie Wanamaker and Niveum are the prevailing 

 whites, and W. H. Lincoln and Dr. Covert the latest yellows. 

 There are practically no pink or red varieties in com- 

 merce here. The best flowers of the large varieties bring 

 fifty to seventy-five cents apiece. Crystal Wave, a small 

 white Chrysanthemum, is among the latest, and is sold in 

 sprays. Mr. Edwin Lonsdale' writes from Philadelphia that 

 Mrs. J. G. lis, Mont Blanc, Mrs. H. H. Battles and Mrs. Thomas 

 Cartledge are all proving good for late market flowers. The 

 fact is that the operator can prolong the season of Chrysanthe- 

 mums by judicious propagating, so that any of the mid-season 

 varieties can be grown late, and any of the late varieties can 

 be made to flower very late. The best American Beauty 

 roses, with stems three to four feet long, bring at retail $1.50 

 each. Of course, this is for choice flowers, which always 

 command high prices. Clusters of fifty of the best-grown 

 Marie Louise violets sold last week for as much as $3 00. 



We. have received an interesting photograph of a Water-lily 

 tank, in which four or five of the tropical Nymphasas are in 

 bloom, and the buds show that many more flowers are to 

 come. The photograph was taken on the 20th of November, 

 and Mr. Rodolfus Bingham, of Camden, New Jersey, in whose 

 residence the tank is built, states that the Water-lilies have been 

 flowering since early in June. Some of the leaves are over 

 sixteen inches in diameter, and the flowers seven inches 

 across. What makes this pool of particular interest is that it 

 is in an attic-garden, that is, in the third-story of a part of Mr. 

 Bingham's dwelling-house, which has a glass-roof, and so far 

 has only had the surplus heat from the rooms below. Abu- 

 tilons, Ferns and many other plants in this room, which 

 is twenty-eight feet by twenty in size, look very thrifty. 

 For people who live in cities a conservatory on the roof is 

 worth considering, from the fact that it receives the sun for an 

 hour or two longer every day than it would on the ground. 

 Mr. Bingham writes that by pressing a circle of fine wire be- 

 tween the petals and stamens of Nymphasa-flowers the day- 

 blooming varieties can be kept open at night ; but the sugges- 

 tion of any such restraint laid on the habits of a flower is not 

 altogether pleasant. 



