330 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 177. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Drymophlaeus olivaeformis. 



THIS is one of about a dozen species of Arecoid Palms 

 peculiar to tropical Australia, New Guinea and sev- 

 eral small islands adjacent. The genus is closely related to 

 the true Ptychospirmas and Pinangas, and it resembles them 

 in having unarmed, thin, elegant stems, which often flower 

 in cultivation when only a few feet in height, and continue 

 to flower annually. Drymophlaeus is scarcely known in 

 cultivation outside botanical collections, although most of the 

 species, the one here figured in particular, are ornamental 

 and of convenient size for pot-culture in ordinary stoves. 



D. olivceformis, Mart, is a native of the Moluccas, 

 where it forms a slender stem from fifteen to twenty feet 

 in height, with a spreading head of pinnate leaves. The 

 Kew plant, from which the accompanying photograph 

 (see page 331) was made, is about fourteen years old, and 

 at present its stem is three feet high, its leaves three feet 

 long, and the wedge-shaped pinnae are about five inches 

 wide at the apex, the upper margin being jagged like a. 

 fish's tail. The texture of the leaves is soft and fleshy for 

 a Palm. An inflorescence is produced annually, and 

 the plant is about six months in maturing its fruit. The 

 flowers are small, white monoicous, and the fruits are egg- 

 shaped, an inch long, and colored rich scarlet. At the 

 time when the photograph was made the fruits were at 

 their best, and were as attractive as the brightest of flow- 

 ers. Like all the Palms of this section of the order, Dry- 

 mophlaeus requires a tropical moist house and plenty of 

 water at all times. 



London. W. Wat SOU. 



Populus Monticola. 



WE are able to publish a figure (p. 329) this week, 

 made from material with which the discoverer has 

 supplied us, of the interesting and very distinct Poplar 

 found in Lower California in January of last year by Mr. 

 T. S. Brandegee. 



Populus Monticola * is a tree, which grows sometimes to 

 the height of eighty or ninety feet, with a stout trunk three 

 feet through, covered with rough ash-colored bark and 

 with ascending branches and slender terete branchlets, 

 which are covered when they first appear with thick white 

 tomentum, and during the first year at least with pale silky 

 pubescence. The bark of the trees, until they are about thirty 

 feet high, is described as smooth and light-colored, resem- 

 bling that of the Aspen, and it only becomes rough on 

 large trunks. The bud-scales, which appear to persist until 

 the leaves are nearly half-grown, are ovate, rounded at the 

 apex, ciliate on the margins and coated with silky white 

 pubescence. The leaves are broadly ovate, coarsely and 

 sinuately dentate, often acute or sometimes rounded at the 

 apex, and wedge-shaped or nearly truncate at the base. 

 They are conspicuously reticulate-veined, three inches long 

 by as much broad, or often somewhat smaller, and are 

 three-nerved from the base, the middle nerve being fur- 

 nished with two or three pairs of principal veins. The 

 leaves are silky pubescent on the two surfaces, especially 

 on the broad nerves, and are borne on slender terete 

 petioles two inches long and covered with thick white 

 tomentum. The stipules are linear, chartaceous and early 

 deciduous. The fruiting ament is an inch long and a third 

 of an inch broad. The capsules are ovate, thickly coated 

 with white silky tomentum, . and two to three-valved. 

 There are usually two styles united at the base ; the disk 

 is small, and nearly flat ; the scales are rounded, slightly 

 sinuate-dentate, ciliate on the margin, but otherwise almost 

 glabrous. The male flowers have not been collected. 



"Populus Monticola inhabits," Mr. Brandegee informs 

 us, " the high mountains of the interior of the cape region 

 of Lower California, growing along the streams and fol- 

 lowing: them into the canons well down toward the warm 



lowlands. At high elevations (5,000 feet), and growing in 

 cool, rocky gulches, it is not more than twenty feet high. 

 At lower altitudes it becomes a large tree, nearly 100 feet 

 high, and is a favorite support for the wild Grape-vines. 

 The wood is of a light reddish color, and is used for making 

 furniture. 



" This Cottonwood is known by the name of Guerigo to 

 the inhabitants, who distinguish it from the common one 

 of the fields and gardens, called by them Alamo. The 

 leaves and flowers appear in February, and in October all 

 are fallen, a season of growth usual in California, but very 

 different from the ordinary habit of the plants of the cape 

 region of Lower California, where most of the vegetation 

 comes forward with the summer and fall rains at the time 

 when the Cottonwoods are losing their leaves, and appear 

 to be preparing for the winter, which, however, never 

 comes. The contrast between a flora dying and a flora 

 coming into life, at the same time and in the same place, 

 is strange and interesting. Associated with the Cotton- 

 wood in locality, and in its habit of coming forward with 

 the new year, are the Arbutus, Rubus, Ribes, Prunus, 

 Heteromeles, Vitis, etc., although plants belonging to 

 northern genera do not always have flowers that bloom in 

 the spring." : — C. S. S. 



Cultural Department. 



Stray Notes from the Arnold Arboretum. 



-IV 



* Populus Monticola, Brandegee, Zoe, i., 274. 



A MONG exotic Cornels, as at present represented in the 

 ■**• Arboretum, there are only two which possess ornamen- 

 tal qualities of a different character from those found in our 

 native species, and which will repay cultivation in this country. 

 There are some east Asian species, which are not introduced, 

 and a few others only imperfectly known, so that there is a 

 chance that the number of good garden Cornels may still be 

 enlarged. 



The two foreign species which can well be added to our 

 shrubberies are the White-fruited Dogwood, Comus alba, and 

 the so-called Male Dogwood or Cornelian Cherry, C. Mas. 

 The first is a spreading shrub which, in good soil, grows to 

 the height of six or ten feet and produces slender, recurved 

 branches covered with bright red bark. In habit and in the 

 general appearance of the foliage and flowers, and in the 

 color of the fruit, it bears a strong resemblance to our native 

 red-stemmed Dogwood (C. sericea), and the only advantage it 

 possesses over that species is in the brighter color of its 

 branches in winter. In this particular it is far superior to the 

 American plant and should Feplace it where the attempt is 

 made to produce a bright effect in the shrubbery during the 

 winter months. There is a variety of this plant occasionally 

 met with in nurseries under the name of C. Sibirica, which 

 has deeper-colored and brighter branches than any other 

 plant which is hardy in this climate ; and this, rather than 

 the more common form, should be planted. Of the origin of 

 this variety not very much is known ; it may have been brought 

 from Siberia or it may have appeared in some European nur- 

 sery. The earliest mention of it is to be found in the catalogue 

 for the year 1836 of the Loddiges, fifty years ago famous Lon- 

 don nurserymen who maintained a large and very rich arbo- 

 retum in connection with their business. 



C. alba is widely distributed and very common in Siberia and 

 through northern Asia, and in this country is perfectly hardy. 

 It is, like all the Cornels of this class, easily raised from seed 

 or from cuttings made in the summer ; it grows as rapidly as 

 any of the native species, and can be mingled with them with- 

 out danger of offending the most sensitive taste or shocking 

 the susceptibilities of those critical designers of natural land- 

 scape who sometimes find the most beautiful garden-plant 

 out of place in the picture of silvan beauty and quietness they 

 would create, unless from harmony of outline and of charac- 

 ter acquired by natural selection and long association it hap- 

 pens to accord with its surroundings. 



The Cornelian Cherry is a small tree, reaching sometimes 

 the height of twenty feet, with slender, rigid branches forming 

 a head of rather formal outline. It is one of the plants which 

 cover themselves with flowers in early spring, before any of 

 its leaves appear. The flowers are small and bright yellow ; 

 they are arranged, however,' in compact, many-flowered clus- 

 ters, and these, being scattered along the whole length of the 

 branches, give to the plant, in the early days of April, a very 

 striking and beautiful appearance. Here it is the first of the 

 shrubs with showy flowers to blossom, the flowers appearing 



