March 25, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



135 



Recent Botanical Discoveries in China and 

 Eastern Burma. — V. 



Rehmannia. — An examination of the copious specimens of 

 this ornamental genus, collected by Dr. Henry, led to an in- 

 crease in the number of species, including two described for 

 the first time, and the raising of R. glutinosa, var. angtilata, of 

 Oliver, in Hooker's " Icones Plantarum " (t. 1589)^0 specific 

 rank. At the same time the forms are so numerous that R. 

 glutinosa, R. angulata, and what I take, from the description, 

 to be R. Piasezkii of Maximowicz, are not quite satisfactorily 

 definable from dried specimens ; and I am doubtful whether 

 I have correctly referred R. Chinensis, as figured in the Botan- 

 ical Magazine (t. 3653) and in the Botanical Register (t. i960), 

 to 7?. glutinosa. A comparison of the two figures citedreveals 

 considerable difference in the coloring, which is of akind that 

 recalls the American genus Salpiglossis, of which it is no very 

 distant relation. The plants figured differ from the wild dried 

 specimens from north China in having more decidedly leafy 

 flowering-stems — a result, probably, of cultivation. Both R. 

 angulata and R. Piasezkii are usually taller-growing plantsthan 

 R. glutinosa. Among the specimens referred to R. Piasezkii are 

 some between two and three feet high, and, judging from 

 their vigor, this species probably reaches as much as four feet 

 in height under favorable conditions. On the other hand, it 

 is sometimes reduced to a single flower ; yet that flower is 

 larger, with a wider corolla, than in any of the specimens^ of 

 R. glutinosa. Some of the specimens are described as having 

 white flowers, but one from the Ningpo District is said to 

 have magenta flowers and to be an exceedingly showy plant. 

 In shape and size — three inches long — the flowers remind one 

 forcibly of those of Lophospermum scatidens. R. angulata 

 differs in the lobes and teeth of the leaves being pointed in- 

 stead of rounded. The flowers are variously colored — red, 

 scarlet and orange being combined in the same flowers. A 

 very pretty plant of this affinity, which I have doubtingly re- 

 ferred to Rehmannia, and called Oldhami, after its first discov- 

 erer, comes from Formosa, where Mr. W. Hancock collected 

 good flowering specimens in 1885. He found it growing on 

 dripping rocks under the shade of coarse vegetation. It has 

 light-colored flowers (judging from dried specimens only) with 

 dark blotches on the lobes, and in size and shape they are 

 much like those of a medium-sized Pentstemon. Finally, there 

 is a remarkable new species which I have described under the 

 name of R. rupestris, in allusion to its natural place of growth 

 on the face of cliffs or rocks. It has been raised at Kew from 

 seeds sent home by Dr. Henry, and it has been drawn for the 

 Botanical Magazine, so its characteristics will soon be familiar 

 to persons who see that periodical. R. rupestris differs con- 

 spicuously from the other species in the thick leaves being 

 clothed with a thick, white, woolly felt, which was strongly 

 developed in the cultivated plant. In a pot it assumes a curious 

 habit, putting forth thick fleshy branches which take a down- 

 ward direction, concealing the pot. The yellow flowers of the 

 cultivated plant were not so showy as those of the other spe- 

 cies ; but one of the specimens is said to have had pink flow- 

 ers. The Chinese name signifies " cliff-cabbage," given to it 

 probably on account of the large rosette formed by its broad 

 radical leaves. From the foregoing notes it is manifest that 

 the genus Rehmannia merits the attention of the gardener. 



Calorhabdos. — A somewhat lengthy name, signifying 

 beautiful rod, given first to a single Himalayan species ; and 

 now five Chinese species are known, from dried specimens at 

 least. I am not aware that any species of Calorhabdos has 

 ever been cultivated, but should they prove hardy, they are 

 promising plants for introduction in shrubberies and half- 

 shaded situations. Botanically, they are closely related to the 

 Veronicas ; in habit, they are mostly like the trailing Vinca 

 minor; and four out of five of the Chinese species have the 

 small white, pink, red or purple flowers crowded in short, 

 catkin-like spikes, borne in the axils of the usually thick, cor- 

 date or lanceolate, toothed, alternate leaves. A figure of C. 

 latifolia is given in the "Index Flora Sinensis" (Journal of the 

 Linnean Society, xxvi., t. 4), which will afford a better idea of 

 the type of plant than a long description. One of the Chinese 

 species, C. axillaris, also inhabits Japan, and should be easily 

 procured. 



Paulownia. — The last member of the Scrophulariacce I 

 have to mention is the arboreous Paulownia Fortunei. This 

 is not absolutely new to science, having been described by 

 Seemann as long ago as 1867, from imperfect specimens 

 collected by Robert Fortune, to whom we are indebted for so 

 many beautiful plants from the far east. Seemann had only 

 a portion of an inflorescence, bearing three or four flowers, 

 and may therefore be excused for having referred it to the 



Bignoniacece, under the name of Campsis Fortunei. There 

 are two such specimens in the Kew Herbarium ; one bore 

 Seemann's name, and the other was labeled Paulownia 

 imperialis. With ample specimens from the two distant 

 provinces of Kwangtung and Shantung, collected by the 

 Rev. B. C. Henry, an American Missionary, and others, it was 

 at once manifest that we had to do with a second species, 

 differing from P. imperialis by its much elongated, cordate, 

 almost caudate leaves, glabrous and smooth on the upper 

 surface, and clothed with a very short, dense, white felt on the 

 under surface ; and in the longer, more curved flowers. It is 

 described as a tree twenty feet high, and would, probably, 

 flourish better in North America than in England, where 

 there is usually not sufficient sunshine to ripen the wood. 

 Kew. W. Botting Hemsley. 



The Arborescent Yuccas of California. 



THE genus Yucca is represented in California by three spe- 

 cies, neither of them, however, peculiar to the state. 

 Indeed, they are the most northerly outliers of the genus, 

 which has its greatest development in northern Mexico. 



Two of the three attain to the size of trees, Y. brevifolia be- 

 ing the largest. It is wholly confined in California to the 

 Mojave desert, of whose peculiar and interesting flora it is the 

 most conspicuous member. On the north its limit is defined 

 by the Tehatchipi Mountains, while the San Bernardino range 

 confines it on the west. South and east its range extends be- 

 yond the boundary of the state to the valley of the Virgen, in 

 south-western Utah, and to the Colorado plateau of Arizona. 

 All this great district is a parched desert, and here at elevations 

 of from 3,000 to 5,000 feet above the sea, on gravelly slopes and 

 mesas, Yucca brevifolia finds a congenial home. Intermixed 

 with a scrubby Juniper (J. occidentalis), it covers many 

 hundred square miles with straggling forests, whose gaunt 

 aspect makes even more cheerless the arid and desolate re- 

 gion they occupy. 



The trees reach the height of twenty, and even thirty feet, 

 with a trunk diameter of over a foot. The upper third of the 

 trunk is furnished with a number of contorted branches, which 

 form an irregular and often grotesque head. The leaves are 

 about eight inches long and half an inch wide, rough and very 

 rigid, the edges serrulate, and the extremity armed with a 

 spine. Only those at the ends of the branches show by their 

 ashy green color that the tree is living ; the older ones are 

 closely reflexed to the branches and bleached by the sun. The 

 lower portion of the trunk is bare and brown. 



Although this tree was noticed by Fremont in 1844 it was 

 thirty years later before its flowers were made known. These 

 were first observed by Dr. Parry in 1874 in southern Utah, and 

 described by him in the American Naturalist for March of the 

 succeeding year. 



They are produced near the ends of the branches in short 

 and rather dense, sessile panicles. The perianth has none of 

 the grace and elegance characteristic of the genus. The texture 

 is thick and leathery, the color dirty white, and the narrow seg- 

 ments are confusedly crowded. A disagreeable odor adds to 

 the unattractiveness of the flower. April or May is the time of 

 flowering, according as the season is early or late. 



The fruit is dry, with a somewhat spongiose pericarp, the 

 withered remains of the perianth persisting at the base. Good 

 specimens are four inches long and nearly two in diameter. 

 Although truly indehiscent, the ripe fruit manifests a tendency 

 to the capsular structure by the replacement at what would be 

 the dissepiments of the thick texture of the pericarp by a thin 

 membrane, which occasionally splits. They are opened here 

 by birds, which are perhaps in search, not so much of the seed 

 as of the larvas which abundantly infest them. 



The seed has the black color and the flat, orbicular shape 

 common in the genus. They are about a quarter of an inch 

 in diameter and a line thick. The tree apparently produces 

 its flowers every year, but is very irregular in perfecting its 

 fruit, which is abundant in some seasons, but in others is an 

 entire failure throughout large districts. In 1876 I traveled 

 many miles through the Yucca-forests of the Mojave, finding 

 but a single group of less than a dozen trees which had pro- 

 duced fruit that year. 



The wood is coarsely fibrous, and is without any present 

 economic value. It was at one time thought to be available 

 as a material for paper fibre, and a factory was built in the 

 desert, where it was prepared for shipment to England to be 

 used for that purpose. The enterprise was apparently unsuc- 

 cessful, and was soon abandoned. 



In Utah this tree is called the Joss, Josh or Joshua, a name 

 probably given it by the Mormons, and the meaning and 



