296 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 174. 



Other Orchids which were especially recognized by the 

 Society were Lalia elegans Statteriana, white, with a large 

 labellum veined with crimson, on a creamy-white ground; 

 Cypripedium Stonei magnificum ; Dendrobiitm Parishii albens, 

 a variety with pale lilac Mowers ; Masdevallia Harryana luteo- 

 oculata, large richly colored Mowers with a distinct yellow eye ; 

 Odontoglossum elegans Sanderee, which is a most beautifully 

 and heavily marked variety of one of the very finest Odonto- 

 glossums ; 0. Amesianum ; and several hybrid Cypripediums. 



Kew. W. Watson. 



Cultural Department. 



Stray Notes from the Arnold Arboretum. 



T\/r ANY of the plants which will be mentioned in these notes 

 ■'■*■*■ have already been noticed in the columns of Garden 

 and Forest, and several of them have been figured and de- 

 scribed in detail. A longer test in this severe climate, how- 

 ever, brings out the good qualities and emphasizes the value 

 of plants known in cultivation for a few years only or shows 

 their weaknesses or bad qualities, and a few additional facts 

 relating to them may be useful to planters. 



Too much cannot be said, certainly, in praise of the native 

 shrubs of eastern America for the decoration of the gardens 

 and shrubberies of the region which they inhabit naturally. 

 Our native Viburnums and Cornels are all plants of beauty and 

 value. The natural shrubberies made several years ago in the 

 Arboretum with these plants show their beauty and value where 

 shrub-planting on a large scale is desirable. Many of the spe- 

 cies are not less valuable as single specimens than when 

 grouped in broad masses on the borders of natural woods or 

 of wood-drives. The example set by the Arboretum in utiliz- 

 ing our native plants and in developing their beauties is be- 

 ginning to bear good fruit, and there is now a demand for 

 plants of this class which none of the nurserymen are enter- 

 prising enough to be able to fill at all satisfactorily. There is 

 no difficulty, however, in getting up a stock of any of our 

 native plants ; they can, of course, all be raised from seed, and 

 the seed is not difficult to procure in large quantities if any 

 one knowing the plants will take the trouble to go out into the 

 woods and gather it. Young seedling plants, too, can gener- 

 ally be found in abundance in the woods, and, with proper 

 care, these can soon be grown into good specimens. But 

 people do not always take proper care in such cases ; and pur- 

 chasers are apt to think that because plants grow naturally in 

 the woods that they ought not to cost anything but the trouble 

 of digging them. The result has been that nurserymen who 

 have attempted to fill large orders for these plants have gen- 

 erally been forced to offer them at prices which do not allow 

 them to supply proper plants. 



The only way to be sure of succeeding with shrubs or trees 

 dug from the woods is to select only small thrifty specimens — 

 those which are only a few inches high are the best — then to 

 plant them in nursery rows in good soil and to cultivate them 

 for one and perhaps" for two years. Plants treated in this way 

 become stout and stocky and are supplied with abundant 

 roots, and, transplanted to their permanent places, are certain 

 to succeed and to grow rapidly as soon as transplanted. Such 

 plants are worth at least four times as much money as the 

 native plants usually sold and planted. These are generally 

 dug in the autumn, the largest plants possible being selected, 

 so as to make a good show and satisfy the purchaser who 

 habitually wants "something big to make a show at once, as 

 life is too short to plant little sticks " ; the plants are then 

 roughly heeled-in over winter and delivered in the spring with 

 scanty roots and big tops, and usually more dead than alive. 

 Of course, more than three-quarters of such plants die, and the 

 purchaser is discouraged and believes that it is no use trying to 

 make wild plants grow, and goes back to the conventional 

 nursery-grown Golden Spiraeas and Golden Elders, purple- 

 leaved Plums, and all the other so-called novelties with which 

 the tree-peddler beguiles the unwary. It costs just as much 

 money and labor to prepare the ground for a bad plant as it 

 does for a good one, and just as much to plant it. It is wretched 

 economy, therefore, to plant cheap trees or cheap shrubs ; 

 they need not be large — generally the smaller they are when 

 planted the better — but they should be provided with an abun- 

 dant supply of active healthy roots. Good soil and good cul- 

 tiyation are needed to produce good roots and make plants 

 which can be transplanted without risk of loss. 



But to return to our native Viburnums and Cornels. The 

 largest of the Viburnums, which grow in New England, and 

 one of the handsomest of the whole genus, is the so-called 

 Sheep-berry ( Viburnum Lentago). This sometimes attains the 



size of a small tree, but is more often only a shrub. If it is 

 planted by itself in good soil as a specimen on the lawn it will 

 grow into a large round bush perhaps fifteen feet high and ten 

 or fifteen feet through the branches, which will rest on the 

 grass. The leaves are large and beautifully shining and lus- 

 trous, and the large flat clusters of small creamy white Mowers- 

 are produced during the first days of June in the greatest pro- 

 fusion, and in autumn are followed by bunches of handsome 

 blue-black oblong edible fruit. A well-grown and symmetri- 

 cal specimen of this plant is an object of great beauty ; there 

 is hardly another shrub which can be grown into a more per- 

 fect specimen ; and if the Sheep-berry came from Tibet or 

 Yun-nan, or from the summit of an equatorial African moun- 

 tain, and cost fifty pounds an inch, rich Americans would soon 

 exhaust the supply. Now the sight of it only fills most people 

 with surprise and a profound disbelief that such a handsome 

 plant can grow by the roadsides and in the coppices of every 

 New England village, for it is this species which is the chief 

 ornament of our roadsides in early summer. Vibur?ium Len- 

 tago has been largely planted in the Arboretum, and has 

 proved valuable in all the situations where it has been tried. 

 It fiourishes in the shade and in the full sunlight, and requires 

 strong, rich soil and abundant space if it is to be allowed to 

 spread to its full dimensions. 



The nearest species botanically to Viburnum Lentago is the 

 so-called Black Haw [Viburnum prunifo Hum). This plant does 

 not grow in New England, although it is hardy here. It is 

 very common in the middle and southern states, and abounds 

 in Central Park, in New York, where there are many fine speci- 

 mens in the wilder wooded parts, which are made beautiful 

 by them in early May, when the plants are in Mower. This 

 species grows to be a larger tree than Viburnum Lentago, and 

 the Mowers, which are more nearly white than those of that 

 species, are decidedly handsomer ; the fruit, too, is more 

 showy. The leaves, however, are narrower and less lustrous, 

 and, on the whole, except when it is in Mower, the southern 

 plant is less beautiful than its northern relative. 



Viburnum dentatum, or Arrow-wood, is as beautiful almost 

 as either. It is a shrub ten or fifteen feet high, which grows 

 in rather moist soil near streams and swamps all over the 

 northern states, and has' broad lustrous leaves with large 

 sharp teeth and very prominent veins, and produces large Mat 

 clusters of nearly white flowers. The fruit, which ripens in 

 the early autumn, is bright blue and very ornamental. This 

 is an excellent plant in cultivation ; planted in deep well-ma- 

 nured soil it grows with a vigor unknown to the wild plant and 

 produces larger and richer-colored leaves and larger and more 

 abundant clusters of flowers. Few plants better repay good 

 cultivation, and there are very few shrubs of any country 

 which are more ornamental in cultivation or better worth a 

 conspicuous place in the shrubbery. 



Viburnum pubescens is a smaller plant than Viburnum denta- 

 tutn. The leaves are smaller, narrower and more sharply 

 pointed, and the flower-clusters are much smaller. It rarely 

 grows more than three orfourfeet high by as much broad. The 

 flowers, which appear rather earlier than those of Viburnum 

 dentatum, or during the first days of June, are produced in the 

 greatest profusion, and quite cover the plants when they are 

 grown in good soil and allowed an abundance of light and air. 

 This is one of the best shrubs to plant on the outer margin of 

 a large shrubbery, and it is particularly beautiful in the autumn, 

 when the leaves turn a rich dark purple color like that of some 

 old Spanish leather, a most unusual color among our plants. 

 This adds greatly to the value of Viburnum pubescens as an 

 ornamental plant, and makes its cultivation particularly de- 

 sirable. 



Delightful, too, is Viburnum acerifolium, the familiar Arrow- 

 wood of eastern woods. This is a small plant with slender 

 stems, which rarely rise to a greater height than three or four 

 feet, and Maple-shaped leaves, which in the autumn turn a 

 most beautiful scarlet color. The flower-clusters are not 

 broad, but they stand up well on the ends of the branches, and 

 the individual flowers when they expand are bright pink, and 

 later become creamy white. The showy black fruit remains 

 on the branches through the winter. This is naturally a shade- 

 loving plant, and thrives when planted under shrubs and other 

 trees ; it bears the sun, however,- and apparently grows as well 

 when fully exposed to it as it does in its native glades. 



Our two native Viburnums, with nearly entire bright green 

 leaves with obscure veins and long-stalked flower-clusters, are 

 plants for the garden. These are Viburnum cassinoides and 

 Viburntim nudum. No one seeing these plants cultivated for 

 the first time can be made to believe they are common native 

 plants. In their swamps they grow up tall and spindling, but, 

 t ransplanted to good soil, and given sufficient space to spread, 



