May 13, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



219 



Recent Botanical Discoveries in China and 

 Eastern Burma. — VI. 



CyrtandretE. — A group or sub-order of the Gesneracea, 

 comprising about 500 described species, belonging to forty- 

 two genera, all exclusively confined to the Old World. When 

 Mr. C. B. Clarke monographed the Cyrtandrea in 1883 only 

 nineteen species were known to him from eastern Asia — that 

 is to say, from China, Japan and Cochin China. Now about 

 fifty species have been collected in China proper, and doubt- 

 less many yet remain undiscovered. Many of the Chinese 

 species are exceedingly pretty, but they are by no means so 

 brilliantly colored as the sub-tropical Gesnerads of the moun- 

 tains of Mexico and South America, to say nothing of the 

 gorgeous tropical members of this family in both hemispheres. 

 Nevertheless, several of them are specially worthy of cultiva- 

 tion. Primulina Tabacum, though not one of Dr. Henry's 

 plants, is of comparatively recent discovery. It is a native of 

 the province of Kwangtung, and was figured in the Botanical 

 Magazine last year (t. 71 17) from plants raised at Kew two years 

 previously ; but it is a delicate kind of plant not likely to find 

 favor with gardeners. Its strong resemblance in habit and 

 flowers to some of the Primulas suggested the generic name, 

 and the specific name was given in allusion to the strong 

 smell of Tobacco which the living plant exhales. Indeed, the 

 Chinese call it Rock Tobacco. The flowers are violet and 

 white ; and this is the only species of the genus hitherto dis- 

 covered. 



Turning to some of the more ornamental recent discoveries 

 I may name Orescharis Auricula (DeCandolle's "Monographia 

 Phanerogamarum," v., t. 6), Didissandra speciosa, Didymocar- 

 pus rotundifolius, Didissandra sanatilis, Chirita eburnea and 

 Baa crassifolia. All of these must be very pretty, and some 

 of them, if easily cultivated, might equal the Chinese Prim- 

 rose, of which they have the habit, as winter-flowering green- 

 house plants. Of course so much depends upon the amount 

 of care and time required to rear them. The prettiest, per- 

 haps, of all these is, Didissandra speciosa. It has thick, oblong, 

 stalked, toothed leaves from three to five inches long, and very 

 slender scapes rising well above them, and bearing usually 

 one or two, though sometimes as many as five, pendulous 

 flowers, much resembling in shape and coloring those of the 

 pendulous Gloxinias ; but they are narrower and perhaps of 

 less substance. The largest of the dried flowers are about two 

 inches long ; and different gatherings are described as pink, 

 purplish and bright blue, spotted with another color inside 

 along the lower half. Dr. Henry states that it inhabits the face 

 of vertical cliffs. This reads a little difficult for cultivation, 

 at least for general cultivation, but when we know that our old 

 favorite, Primula Sinensis, inhabits similar localities, we may 

 rest assured that there is a possible future in our greenhouses 

 for some of these beautiful Chinese Gesnerads. 



I may so far digress here as to give Dr. Henry's note on the 

 habitat of Prhnula Sinensis, the Rock or Winter Primrose of 

 the Chinese. He says : " It grows on the ledges of rocky cliffs, 

 where there is no soil and practically no moisture." He fur- 

 ther adds that the rocks are limestone, that the flowers are 

 produced in December and January, and that the flowers are 

 pink, with a yellow ring round the mouth of the corolla-tube. 



Didymocarpus rotundifolius has a cluster of radical leaves 

 similar to those of Saxifraga sarmentosa, and relatively tall, 

 slender scapes bearing an umbel of long-stalked, medium- 

 sized blue flowers. Didissandra saxatilis has foliage very 

 similar to that of Primula Sinensis, and bears a profusion of 

 narrow tubular flowers, about an inch long and yellow in color 

 — a color very rare in this family of plants. Bata crassifolia has 

 very thick fleshy leaves, like the Auricula, and slender umbels of 

 " very pretty blue flowers," like those of a small Didymocarpus. 



Before leaving this group I may say a word or two respect- 

 ing two of the older members. First, there is the grand Chirita 

 Sinensis, sent home by Fortune in 1844, ar >d figured in the 

 Botanical Magazine for 1847 (t. 4284), and previously in 

 the Botanical Register, 1844 (t. 59). The figure in the 

 Botanical Magazine gave evidence of what high cultiva- 

 tion would do, "the largest plants having borne a succes- 

 sion of twenty large trusses of flowers," and these nearly 

 double the size of those represented in the Register. But even 

 these are far surpassed by cultivated specimens sent to Kew 

 from Hong-Kong by Mr. Ford, the superintendent of the bo- 

 tanic garden there. The flowers on these specimens are 

 almost as large as the largest of the pendent Gloxinias ; but, 

 as Mr. Ford notes on the label accompanying them, they do 

 not otherwise differ from ordinary Chirita Sinensis. 



Lysionotus pauciflorus, which does not deserve the de- 

 preciative specific name, is the last I have to mention. It is a 



small under shrub, with small lanceolate leaves clustered at 

 the ends of the branches, and white or pink flowers on slender 

 stalks from the axils of the leaves. This apparently very 

 pretty plant is found on the Ningpo Mountains and westward 

 in the same latitude to west Szechuen ; and it is also found in 

 Japan ; yet it has never, so far as I can ascertain, been in cul- 

 tivation, and there is no figure of it. Fortune found it grow- 

 ing on old walls in the eastern province of Chekiang, but does 

 not appear to have introduced it. Dr. Henry found it growing 

 in clefts of rocks in the central province of Hupeh; and the 

 Rev. E. Faber collected it on Mount Omei, in Szechuen, at 

 altitudes of 3,000 to 4,000 feet. Finally, the lamented Maxi- 

 mowicz discovered it growing on trees in old woods in Naga- 

 yama Island, Japan. 

 Kew. Vr. Bo t ting Hems ley. 



How We Renewed an Old Place. 



V. — ON THE PERVERSITY OF CERTAIN TREES. 



A FAITHFUL student of Garden and Forest takes excep- 

 tion to my calling trees stubborn and irresponsive, and 

 says, " They are only stubborn and irresponsive when they are 

 misunderstood and made to struggle against unnatural con- 

 ditions ; only give them a chance, and you will find that they 

 will respond fast enough." 



I feel that I ought to make an apology to my nurslings, 

 many of whom have given me so much satisfaction, for this , 

 slur upon their character. I am not sure that it is not almost 

 as bad as betraying a domestic secret ; but the editor of these 

 records has enjoined upon me in his kind introduction of 

 them to be as honest about mistakes as about successes, in 

 order to render them truly valuable, so that, lest you may be 

 led away into thinking a tree-nursery freer from failings than 

 a child-nursery, I must tell you the painful as well as the 

 charming facts about them. 



No one knows better than I how much some of the more 

 satisfactory among them will do for one under kind treatment, 

 but, all the same, I must reluctantly maintain that many of 

 of them are freakish and disappointing ; not, perhaps, so much 

 from their inherent wickedness, as from the baneful influences 

 of the world outside, the flirtations with insects of which they 

 are capable, their predilection for ornamenting themselves 

 with white-colored fungous growths which check their develop- 

 ment, a perverseness about living, even when given the very 

 best advantages, only paralleled by those Chinese servants 

 who go and kill themselves if their master speaks sharply to 

 them, and, above all, a stubbornness about adapting them- 

 selves to new conditions as great as that of a true-born 

 Briton. 



Your tree is the true conservative, and will insist upon its 

 own way quite as unreasonably as a human being, even when 

 you are sure you know what is better for it than it does itself. 

 It is as hard to bring it to a new way of living as it is to bring 

 about a constitutional amendment. If there is a spot where 

 you do not want a tree to grow, notably a garden bed or your 

 potato patch, there it will insist on coming up and making 

 itself at home ; but, take up this interloper and put it in a 

 proper place, where you want it, and, ten to one, it will sulk 

 and defy you. 



One's favorites show in extreme youth a propensity to 

 come in contact with cows' horns and the jack-knives of mis- 

 chievous boys ; that is another proof of ill-regulated character. 

 They let their top-buds perish in the most careless way, and 

 put out two leaders instead of one before you know it ; they 

 grow unevenly, they make themselves untidy with absurd 

 little leaves up and down their stems, with a vague idea of 

 keeping the sun off their trunks. One has a constant struggle 

 with evergreens to keep their lower limbs in condition, they 

 always prefer to go barefooted ; indeed, I call one Norway 

 Spruce I know of Sockless Jerry, on account of this very failing. 



A crying instance of depravity I will give you in a moderate- 

 sized White Ash on our lawn, which ought to be a stately tree 

 by this time, for a neighbor tells us it has been growing there 

 for forty years. Every spring it puts out a magnificent crop 

 of new snoots, and we congratulate ourselves that at last it 

 has really made up its mind to go ahead and reward us for all 

 the digging around and high feeding we have given it ; but in 

 late June ominous yellow spots appear upon the leaves, great 

 orange-colored excrescences disfigure the young shoots, and 

 the first thing we know they are all shriveled and dying, and 

 the ground underneath it is strewn with blackened leaves. 

 Later it pulls itself together and gets out a feeble crop of young 

 sprouts, just enough to enable it to hold its own from year to 

 year, but which seem to add almost nothing to its girth, and 

 very little to its height. 



