February 4, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



5i 



collector when he is struggling with the difficulties of such 

 situations as these. 



D. variabilis was not met with until I had reached the state 

 of Mexico. On the sides of ravines among the foot-hills of the 

 mountains that rim the Valley of Mexico it was seen in abun- 

 dance and perfection, a royal plant, coloring the slopes with its 

 profuse purple blooms. Many of the flowers measured five 

 inches in breadth. The height of the plants varied from three 

 to six or eight feet. Near by, butfar less abundant, D. coccinea 

 was growing on the bluffs of streams, the plants here showing 

 the largest development. It added interest to these two plants, 

 as I admired them, to reflect that it was from this vicinity, quite 

 likely, that seed was obtained a little before 1789 to send to the 

 Botanic Garden of Madrid, and again in 1804 by Humboldt. 

 Amidst the enterprise of the present century it seems incom- 

 prehensible that the Spaniard, who admires all things that are 

 beautiful, should have been in Mexico 270 years before send- 

 ing home plants so striking as these. 



• Walking among these wild Dahlias day by day, admiring the 

 symmetry of their single flowers and the rich contrasts of 

 scarlet and gold displayed by the disc and rays of the one, and 

 of purple and gold shown by the other, the aversion which the 

 botanist feels for the monstrous forms of flowers produced in 

 gardens was intensified in me ; and it was with much satisfac- 

 tion that I learned afterward that single Dahlias are now receiv- 

 ing far more attention among cultivators than double ones. 

 As yet, however, it is only the older double sorts that are seen 

 in Mexican gardens. 



After improving this large opportunity to study these two 

 species in their wild state — and probably these are the two 

 most closely related of all which botanists have recognized — I 

 marveled at the audacity shown by the late Mr. Shirley Hibberd 

 when he declared at the Dahlia Show held at Chiswick last 

 autumn that, in his opinion, there was no good ground for ad- 

 mitting more than one original species. If he should be able 

 to refer D. coccinea to D. variabilis, could he so dispose of 

 such extreme species as D. imperialis or D. scapigera, not to 

 mention this new D. dissecta ? . 



Charlotte, Vt. C. G. Prillgh. 



Plant Notes. 



Prunus ilicifolia, var. occidentalis. 



THE relegation of the plant to its proper place seems to have 

 been attended with some difficulty, and as regards the 

 authority for the name under which it first appears there has 

 also been more or less question by botanists who have lately 

 noticed the species. So far as I know, Mr. W. S. Lyon pub- 

 lished the first account of the plant in the Botanical Gazette 

 (xi., 202, 333) in 1886, referring it to Prunus occide?italis of 

 Nuttall,. a name which cannot be found, and very probably 

 was never used by Nuttall, and if at all, as Professor Greene has 

 fitly remarked, Nuttall would more likely have used it under 

 Cerasus, holding, as he did, the sections of Prunus, as now 

 understood, to be separate genera. 



Professor Greene gives the next account of this plant in his 

 "Notes on the Botany of Santa Cruz Island" (Bull. Cal. Acad. Sc, 

 ii., 7,395, 1887) under Prunus occidentalis, and failing, as others 

 have, to find that the name was of Nuttall, properly cites Lyon 

 as the authority. 



The next mention is by Mr. T. S. Brandegee in his "Flora 

 of the Santa Barbara Islands" (Proc Cal. Acad. Sc, ser. 2, i., 

 2,209, l %%9)> where it appears as Prunus ilicifolia, Walp., var. 

 occidentalis (Lyon) (=P. occidentalis, Lyon). Professor Sargent 

 (Garden and Forest, ii., 400) approves the disposition of the 

 plant in relating it to Prunus ilicifolia, and advises that Mr. 

 Brandegee's name be taken up, although very properly adding 

 that occidentalis is nevertheless unfortunate, in view of the 

 West Indian species, which bears the same name. 



It appears now, however, that the term occidentalis is no 

 longer tenable in its application to this plant, either in the rank 

 of species or variety, as, in 1800, Swartz applied it to a West 

 Indian species of this genus ("Fl. Ind. Occ," ii., 925), a fact 

 which should preclude its further use in the case of our 

 California insular variety, and hence leaves this plant without 

 a name. 



I have thought best, therefore, to designate this variety as 

 Prunus ilicifolia, var. integrifolia. 



The following characterization of this variety is drawn 

 chiefly from Professor Greene's remarks (I. c.) under Prunus 

 occidentalis, Lyon : 



Leaves evergreen, glossy, three to four inches long, two to 

 two and a half inches broad ; mostly ovate-acuminate, rarely 

 lanceolate-acuminate, and three inches long by three-fourths 



of an inch broad, sometimes broadly ovate and abruptly acute, 

 with spinose-serrate margins, usually entire or remotely den- 

 ticulate. Inflorescence racemose, flowers white. Fruit dark 

 red-purple, orbicular, three-fourths of an inch in broadest 

 diameter, slightly compressed laterally and with a well-marked 

 suture on one side ; pulp thin, sweet, with bitter almond flavor. 

 Fifteen to twenty-five feet high, bark rough and dark colored, 

 crown compact and well rounded. 



As occurring on Santa Cruz Island it is described as resem- 

 bling a large bush with several trunks from the same root ; 

 while on Santa Rosa a single trunk sometimes reaches a height 

 of fifteen feet before branching. Mr. Brandegee mentions a 

 large tree near San Francisco with a diameter of more than two 

 feet, and that in the Santa Inez Mountains it reaches six inches 

 in diameter. 



Professor Greene adds that the narrow-leaved form is only 

 occasional, and that the spinose-serrate foliage belongs chiefly 

 to young trees. 



Mr. Lyon (/. c.) states that in parts of Santa Catalina Island 

 this tree is characteristic and conspicuous in its beauty, occur- 

 ring on the interior mountain ridges at 3,000 feet elevation, as 

 well as in the rich valleys and canons to the water's edge. 

 Professor Greene reports it from Santa Cruz Island, where Mr. 

 Brandegee examined it, as well also as on Santa Rosa, where 

 it is confined to the bottoms of canons. 

 Washington, D. c. George B. Sudworth. 



New or Little Known Plants. 

 Viola ocellata. 



THIS pretty Violet (Fig. 13, p. 55) is closely related to our 

 common eastern Canada Violet ( V. Canadensis). It 

 is a native of California, where it is found growing under 

 the shade of the forests of the coast ranges from the 

 northern borders of the state to Monterey. It has the leafy 

 stems of its eastern relative, and very much the same habit 

 of growth, and the same cordate, pointed, serrate leaves. 

 The petals, however, instead of being white faintly tinged 

 with violet, as in that species, are more gaily colored. 

 The two upper are white on the inner surface and deep 

 purple-brown on the outer, while the others are yellow 

 veined with purple, the two lateral with a purple spot near 

 the base and slightly bearded on the claw. 



Viola ocellata* has been known to botanists for a long 

 time. It has not probably, however, been often cultivated, 

 although well worth a place in those gardens in which 

 plants with pretty and delicate flowers are valued. 



Juglans Vilmoriniana. 



THE tree whose portrait appears in the illustration on 

 P a g e 53 was planted as a young seedling by' my 

 grandfather in his garden at Verriers, near Paris, as a 

 memorial of the birth of his oldest son. Nothing is known 

 of its origin. It is supposed, however, to be a hybrid 

 between the European Walnut and the American Black 

 Walnut. Such, at least, was the opinion of the late Dr. 

 Engelmann, and his conclusion seems fully sustained by 

 an examination of the characters of the tree. The branches 

 are more upright than those of the European Walnut. The 

 bark of the trunk is grayish, with regular vertical rather 

 remote furrows ; that of the two to four-year-old branch- 

 lets is dark brown and smooth, the young shoots being 

 slightly pubescent near the buds, and the color of Floren- 

 tine bronze. The buds are enclosed in brown, somewhat 

 fleshy, hairy scales. These characters are almost inter- 

 mediate between those of the European and of the Black 

 Walnut. The leaves and the fruit are intermediate in char- 

 acter, too, between the supposed parents. The leaves of 

 Juglans Vilmoriniana are usually composed of five pairs and 

 a terminal leaflet, the last being somewhat larger than the 

 others. They are ovate, slightly coriaceous, smooth, dark 

 green, and remain on the branches until killed by frost. 

 On the whole, the leaves resemble those of the English 

 Walnut, but with one or two additional pairs of leaflets and 



*Viola ocellata, Torrey & Gray "Fl. N. Am." i., 142.— Hooker & Arnott, " Eot. 

 Beech," 325. — Brewer & Watson, "Bot. Cal.," i„ 56.— Gray, Bot. Gazette, xi., 291. 



