March ii, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



113 



lower surface with fine silky appressed hairs. The flowers are 

 solitary, very short-peduncled, and five or six inches in diam- 

 eter, and remarkable in the broad ring of blood-red filaments 

 which surrounds the pistil. This tree was purchased by the 

 authorities of the Royal Gardens from the Japanese Court of 

 the Paris Exhibition in 1889, and it flowered at Kew in the open 

 ground last year. The flowers are described as possessing a 

 powerful odor, like those of the Calycanthus. This, we suspect, 

 is the plant which Mr. Thomas Hogg introduced into the 

 Parsons' Nursery at Flushing many years ago, where it has 

 proved perfectly hardy. He found it in the mountains of 

 Japan and considered it a mountain form of M. parviflora, 

 and it is under this designation that it has been grown and dis- 

 tributed from Flushing, where it flowers every year and has 

 occasionally produced fruit. It is probably distinct from M. 

 parviflora, as Sir Joseph Hooker points out, differing from 

 that species in its much larger foliage and in its larger short- 

 stalked flowers. A drawing was made in the Parsons' Nur- 

 sery some years ago for Garden and Forest, but has been 

 held in the hope that a figure of the fruit, which is not obtain- 

 able every year, might be added to make it complete. The 

 yellow margins of the leaves of the Kew plant are possibly 

 abnormal, as, judging from the source whence it was obtained, 

 the specimen is probably of garden origin. 



Other figures in the same number of the Botanical Magazine 

 are: Catacetum ftmbriatum (t. 7158), a showy Brazilian Orchid 

 long known in gardens, having been exhibited at Brussels as 

 long ago as 1848 ; Rhododendron scabrifolium (t. 7159), one of 

 the numerous Rhododendrons recently discovered in western 

 China by the Abbe Delavay, chiefly from the mountains of 

 Yun-nan, which the present species inhabits at an elevation of 

 8,000 feet above the sea-level. It is a small rigid shrub, hairy 

 all over, with the exception of the bracts, corolla, stamens and 

 style. The leaves are two and a half to three and a half inches 

 long, elliptical or oblong-lanceolate and acute at both ends. 

 The flowers are borne in loose terminal subumbellate fascicles 

 on long slender pedicels surrounded at the base by pubescent 

 yellowish bracts. The corolla is an inch and a half in diame- 

 ter, and is white, flushed with pink, with a short campanulate 

 tube. The species is rather interesting than beautiful from a 

 garden point of view. Tricuspidaria dependens (t. 7160), a 

 small Chilian tree of the Linden family, widely distributed 

 through ten degrees of latitude. It produces handsome pen- 

 dulous, blood-red flowers an inch and a quarter long, hanging 

 from the axils of the new leaves. Angracwn fragrans (t. 7 161), 

 an Orchid chiefly interesting for the persistent vanilla-like odor 

 of the dried leaves, which has caused them to be used as tea 

 in Bourbon, the Mauritius, and even to some extent in France, 

 where it is considered digestible, and recommended in dis- 

 eases of the respiratory organs. 



Cultural Department. 

 The Genus Cycas. 



OF the nine genera into which the order Cycadacece is now 

 divided the genus Cycas is the only one which finds 

 general favor in horticulture. C. revoluta is universally popu- 

 lar as a decorative plant ; it is also a conspicuous feature in 

 elaborate flower arrangements, especially for funeral occasions 

 in Germany and several other continental countries. In Eng- 

 land it is generally grown for the conservatory. It is perhaps 

 the hardiest of all Cycads, and its beautifully glossy green, 

 plume-like leaves are as durable as the leaves of any plant. 



It is a native of China, from whence it is said to have been 

 introduced into Europe by Thunbergin 1737. Its trunk some- 

 times attains a considerable height, as is shown by a specimen 

 in the Kew museum, which is ten feet high. A living plant in 

 the winter garden has a stem six feet high. As a rule, how- 

 ever, before the trunks get to this height they sprout all over 

 their sides and base and break up into numerous heads. 

 Large examples of both the female and male plants are in the 

 Kew collection. The female is common in gardens, and when 

 in flower its central, nest-like cluster of stunted, brown, felt- 

 covered fronds, bearing each three or four orange-colored, egg- 

 like fruits, is both attractive and interesting. The male plant, 

 however, is exceedingly rare. The Kew examples were ob- 

 tained after much trouble from Shanghai in 1884. The cones 

 are erect, pine-like, and each stem is said to produce three 

 cones at once. 



Next in popularity to C. revoluta comes C. circinalis, which 

 appears to be common in the tropics of Asia, and which has 

 been known in English gardens since the year 1700, when it was 

 introduced by the Earl of Clarendon. 



Dr. Trimen states that it is abundant in Ceylon, where its 

 trunk often grows to a height of from fifteen to twenty feet, 

 and is sometimes branched. Some fine trunks were sent from 

 Ceylon to the Colonial and Indian Exhibition held in London 

 in 1886, of which several are now at Kew. One of these is a 

 particularly handsome specimen. Its trunk is eight feet high 

 and fifteen inches wide at the base. The spread of its foiiage 

 is eleven feet through, each frond being six feet long, eighteen 

 inches wide, with the pinnae a foot long, arched, and five- 

 eighths of an inch wide. 



C. Rumphii is very similar to C. circinalis, as also are C. 

 Celebica and C. Thouarsii. This last is the only Cycas repre- 

 sented in Africa, where it was found by Kirk on the Zambesi. Dr. 

 Gappy states that he saw in an island in Bougainville Straits a 

 Cycas, probably C. Rumphii, "with a stem forty-five feet high, 

 growing solitary in a plantation." This is by far the tallest 

 Cycad I have ever heard of. The largest specimen of C. 

 Rumphii at Kew is a particularly fine one. Its stem is less 

 than three feet high by seven inches in diameter at the base, 

 but it carries a head of forty leaves, each six feet long and 

 eighteen inches wide, the pinnae falcate, fourteen inches 

 long by half an inch in width. I have seen a picture of a 

 plant of C. Rumphii in Calcutta, with no less than fourteen 

 heads of leaves and a cone in the centre of every head. 



C. undulata of gardens may be C. Sumannii, a native of 

 Fiji, and not unlike C. circinalis, except that the pinnae are 

 slightly wavy at the margins. 



C. Riuminiana is a most elegant species and a very rare one. 

 The Kew plant has a stem eighteen inches high by four in 

 diameter, twelve leaves, each four feet long, the pinnae nar- 

 row, thin in texture, half an inch wide, and of a bright, glossy 

 green. The fronds are almost as elegant as the leaves of a 

 Cocos. This rare plant was introduced from the Philippines 

 by Mr. W. Bull some twelve years ago. 



C. Siamensis is almost as largely grown in France as C. 

 revoluta is here. This is partly due to the fact that it is com- 

 mon in Siam and Cochin China, from whence it was introduced 

 in quantity into France about ten years ago. It has large 

 stems, often seven feet high, much swollen at the base ; 

 elegant bright green fronds about four feet long, and pinnae 

 nine inches long. It is supposed to be sufficiently hardy to 

 bear as low a temperature as C. revoluta. At Kew, however, 

 it is grown in a stove, having failed in the large temperate 

 house. I do not see how C. gracilis, var. viridis, of Van Houtte, 

 C. pluma of Ball, and C. Boddamii of Dyer differ from C. 

 Siamensis. 



C. pectinata. — This is the handsomest of all Cycas. It is 

 not, however, as easily grown as the better-known species, as 

 it requires a stove temperature, with plenty of sunlight and 

 moisture. Even then its fronds, magnificent though they are 

 when at their best, suffer considerably in winter, and are rarely 

 fit to remain on the plant a second year. The plant repre- 

 sented in the illustration (page 114) was grown at Kew over 

 the tank devoted to Victoria Regia. It was in a ten-inch pot, 

 had a stem a foot high, conical in shape, and leaves eight feet 

 long, rich green in color, and as elegant as an ostrich plume. 

 This species is easily distinguished from all others by its semi- 

 erect, arching fronds and by its thin, blunt-tipped, long, falcate 

 pinnae. It is a native of Sikkim. Sir Joseph Hooker found it 

 in Great Rungeet Valley in 1848, and a sketch of it made by 

 him on the spot shows it with a stout stem at least twelve feet 

 high. The fruit of this species is as large as a Golden Drop 

 plum, and as richly colored when ripe. The male cone is ex- 

 ceptionally large and handsome, being nearly twenty inches 

 long by six inches in diameter, tapering to both ends. It is 

 formed of fleshy, closely packed, overlapping scales, each 

 tipped with a macron nearly two inches long. C. Jenkinsiana 

 of Griffith appears to be the same as this. 



There are several Australian species of Cycas which are 

 represented only in few collections at present, but which 

 when better known and more plentiful are certain to find favor. 

 They are quite as elegant in foliage as and at the same time 

 distinct from the other species mentioned. The best-known 

 is C. media, which is not unlike C. Siamensis, and of which 

 Mr. Bull used to have some very fine specimens : C. Kennedy- 

 ana, C. Cairnsiana and C. Norma7ibyana. 



The most famous collections of Cycads are those at Kew, 

 Herrenhausen (Hanover), Potsdam and St. Petersburg. Mr. 

 Bull has also a good many species ; indeed, he is the only 

 English nurseryman who possesses a representative collection 

 of these plants. In massiveness and grandeur the Cycads are 

 not surpassed even by Palms, while many of them are so 

 easily kept healthy that it seems almost difficult to harm them. 



The cultural requirements of Cycases do not differ mate- 

 rially from those of the order generally. They do not require 



