130 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 160. 



Tlie Wissahickon is one of the most romantic of American 

 streams. The slopes on each side are high and abrupt. "Self- 

 guarded by these rock battlements, it retains that primeval 

 character, in which, let us hope, it will always be preserved. 

 Along- its hanks trees and vines hang down to the water's edge, 

 and numerous springs drip from the rocks. Its unbroken 

 quiet, its dense woodland, its Pine-crowned hills, its sunless 

 recesses and sense of separation from the outer world, contrast 

 strongly with the hroad meadows, the open-flowing river, and 

 the bright sunshine, which characterizes the adjacent region. 

 It is a chosen spot." 



If left open to the public as it now is, without adequate police 

 supervision, its natural beauty must soon fade. The younger 

 growth will be tramped down, and in a few years its charm 

 will be gone. A systematic care of these densely wooded 

 hills, and a wise financial management, will preserve this most 

 natural of all spots to the country forever. A large amount of 

 the present growth has reached maturity. A careful and 

 scientific thinning might be of the greatest advantage. Some 

 system might be carried on ; regeneration under shelter wood, 

 either in compartments or single trees, or a combination of 

 seedling and coppice forest. At the present time, when a tree 

 falls, that is the end ; no other tree takes its place. This should 

 not be so, for in a very few years there will be no woodland 

 left. 



If we can profit by European experience, this forest might be 

 so managed as to pay the expenses of its maintenance. Mr. 

 Pinchot, in his excellent article in Garden and Forest (vol. 

 hi., p. 398), says : " But the interest of the citizens of Zurich in 

 the Sihlwald is far from being centred in the substantial return 

 which it makes to the city treasury. Its second interest lies in 

 the qualities of a great city park, which it unquestionably pre- 

 sents. It has been the wise policy of Herr Meister to main- 

 tain throughout the forest a network of well-kept roads and 

 paths, to place occasional benches along them, to keep the 

 beauty of the landscape unharmed, and in general to make 

 the Sihlwald thoroughly and pleasantly accessible. In so doing 

 he has secured its future by demonstrating to the people the 

 utility and value of their ownership. The question naturally 

 arises whether the multiform advantages to be derived from 

 such a city forest in Switzerland might not be enjoyed in 

 America ? " 



Why not make the Wissahickon woods the municipal forest 

 of the city of Philadelphia ? Let it become the first American 

 Sihlwald. It will be of inestimable advantage to the city. The 

 water-supply will remain pure, and it will yield a revenue large 

 enough to meet the expenditures for maintenance and salaries 

 of expert foresters. A great advantage would be gained even 

 if no surplus is derived. By united action on the part of the 

 people the city fathers might no doubt be convinced of the 

 benefit to be derived from such a forest. A great expenditure 

 need not be made at first, and in a few years the forest might 

 become self-supporting. A demonstration here of the advan- 

 tages derived from a scientific supervision of a municipal for- 

 est would not only prove a blessing to Philadelphia, but might 

 serve as a stimulus to similar movements throughout the 



Philadelphia, Pa. 7- W. Harshberger. 



Winter Flowers in California. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — The few words from Mr. Purdy in your last issue 

 prompt me to send some notesof the plants that are blooming 

 in my yard this last day of winter. There are eighty-eight in 

 all, and since New Year's on almost any day fifty plants might 

 have been counted in flower, though only in a few cases freely 

 blooming. The finest single plant at present is Doronicum 

 Caucasicum, with the clear yellow of its ray and disk, and the 

 fresh pale green of its leaves. After this comes Aubrietia 

 purpurea, then Triteleia uniflora with its variety Alba, and 

 a white-flowering Allium, which I suppose to be A. Neapoli- 

 tanum. Another mass of white is made by a wide-spreading 

 Iberis sempervirens and a group of Empress Candytuft, while 

 Phlox subulata, with its white variety thrown into contact, 

 spreads over the ground like heavy splashes of color from a 

 brush, and makes a pretty edging to several beds. Phlox amcena, 

 slightly taller than P. subulata, would doubtless make quite as 

 attractive a plant as the latter, but the specimen I have has 

 not had time to grow so as to exhibit its full value. Lobelia 

 Erinus and the Heliotropes are flowering with nothing 

 but the eaves of a gable to protect them. There is always 

 sufficient frost here to kill these plants when exposed. This 

 winter, however, has been a mild one, no snow appearing 

 on either of the ridge-walls that enclose our valley until this 

 month, and then only upon the highest elevation of the one to 



the eastward, Mount Hamilton, the site of the Lick Observatory. 

 This forbearance on the part of the weather has perhaps saved 

 a rectangular mass of thirty by thirty-six inches of Mahernia 

 odorata, just now completely covered with buds. This plant is 

 really a trailer, and, it seems to me, would appear well falling 

 over a wall, or down a stony incline. The Hellebore does well 

 here without protection, and many kinds of Oxalis would cer- 

 tainly pass the winter unharmed. One plant of O. cernua was 

 somewhat affected by frost last month, but has now nearly re- 

 covered, while other plants of the same species seem not to 

 have been touched. Teucrium frutescens is a beautiful plant 

 of a gray-green aspect, the upper part of its leaves very dark 

 green, the lower part, with the stems, silvery, and the flowers 

 pale blue. Over the plant I have is cast the spray and golden 

 balls of a variegated Coronilla glauca, and the combination 

 is not inharmonious. 



Six of the plants in flower, the Ox-eye Daisy being one of 

 them, merely show a few flowers, probably left over from the 

 previous season, but all the rest are making their regular 

 spring display. Several plants are ahead)'' out of flower — the 

 white and yellow Crocus, the Snowdrop, Winter Aconite and 

 Phlox procumbens, while the Narcissi are rushing rapidly 

 through their too short season. 



With favorable weather Alyssum Wiersbeckii will, within a 

 week, eclipse all other yellows with its abundant bloom, and 

 the Peach, whose branches touch the house-wall, will have 

 every twig decorated with rosy blossoms. This Peach-tree 

 loses all of its leaves by a fungal, or insect attack, early in the 

 spring, and is afterward reclothed, the second dress being re- 

 tained well into winter, and the last leaves falling unfaded 

 about the first of January. 



One word is needed for the Correa, which is now seen at its 

 best. A lady, who yesterday saw it for the first time, ex- 

 claimed, " Why, it is really finer than the Fuchsia," and she came, 

 too, from Santa Cruz, where the Fuchsia ranks with the showiest 

 of the garden shrubs, and is a year-long bloomer. Though 

 my specimen was bought for C. alba, it is clearly not that 

 species, as its flowers are pendent, rose-colored without, 

 paler within, and its truncate calyx, though with a some- 

 what irregular border, has no distinct teeth. The flowers of C. 

 speciosa are erect, and the pendent ones of C. virens are 

 green, while C. pulchella has scarlet flowers, so that it is 

 hard to identify my plant. But, whatever its name, its beauty is 

 something to be thankful for during these last winter days 

 even in California. 



Santa Clara, Cal. B. P. Leeds. 



An Ancient Sunflower. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — My horticultural dictionary tells me that the Sunflow- 

 ers are " natives for the most part of North America, although 

 a few are found in Peru and Chili." Yet in an article by a learned 

 German author, recently published in the Deutsche Rundschatt, 

 I read that there is a window in the apse of the Church of St. 

 Remy, at Rheims, which dates from the twelfth century, and 

 on which the Virgin Mary and St. John are represented stand- 

 ing beside the cross and wearing halos, around whose outer 

 edges are pictured flowers of the Helianthus, "all turning 

 toward the Saviour, their true sun." Can you tell me what 

 flower it may be which thus resembles the Helianthus closely 

 enough to be mistaken for it and could have been familiar to 

 Frenchmen of the twelfth century ? I cannot believe that the 

 writer can have mistaken for a glass-painting of so archaic a 

 period as the twelfth century one produced at the much later 

 time when, it seems, the true Sunflowers were introduced into 

 Europe. 



Philadelphia. 



Periodical Literature. 



An article on "The Flora of the Desert of Atacama," written 

 by Mr. Thomas Morong and published in the February Bulle- 

 tin of the Torrey Botanical Club, is especially interesting to the 

 general reader from the facts it gives with regard to the way 

 in which Nature adapts her products for life under the most 

 unfavorable conditions. " It seems," says the author, " like a 

 contradiction in terms to speak of a desert vegetation, and 

 especially one upon a territory so bleak and desolate as the 

 Atacama, which is distinguished by the number of its hide- 

 ously barren hills of rock and its sandy wastes. And yet this 

 desert bears a flora quite extensive and very interesting in its 

 character. Over 500 species of plants have been gathered 

 within its borders, and probably as many more might be de- 

 tected upon a close research. One naturally wonders by what 

 chance such a flora can be brought into existence and how it 



L. H. G. 



