July 22, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest. 



343 



will have, when they are in bloom, three of about as handsome 

 objects to look at as can well be found. 



There is one serious drawback to all the varieties of the 

 common Lilac. The leaves mildew badly during our sum- 

 mers, and the hotter the region is where they are grown the 

 greater the disfigurement from this cause. In cold regions, as 

 in some parts of Canada, the leaves are not disfigured from this 

 cause, and retain their beauty until late in the autumn, although 

 they never assume any brilliant autumnal coloring. There is 

 a Chinese Lilac, however, which is not troubled by mildew. 

 This is the plant found in gardens under the name of 5. oblata 

 (see Garden and Forest, vol. i., p. 221), although it resembles 

 the common Lilac so closely that some botanists believe that it 

 is only a form or variety of that species. As a garden-plant it 

 has the merit of flowering ten or twelve days earlier than the 

 ■common Lilac ; the flowers are rosy purple and exceedingly 

 fragrant, although the clusters are much smaller than those 

 of any of the improved varieties of S. vulgaris. The leaves 

 .are large, broad, thick and leathery, and are never touched by 

 mildew ; in the autumn they turn deep vinous red, and at that 

 season of the year are extraordinarily beautiful. Indeed, S. 

 ablata is well worth a place in the garden for the beauty of its 

 autumn leaves, quite apart from its value as an early spring- 

 flowering shrub. It is a plant to which gardeners will do well 

 to devote more attention than it has yet received, with the 

 idea of producing improved seedling varieties. It may be ex- 

 pected, too, to aid, by hybridization, in the development of a 

 new race of good Lilacs, with large and leathery foliage, able 

 to resist mildew, and with the flowers of some of the best 

 forms of the common Lilac. 6". oblata has been an inhabit- 

 ant of European and American gardens for many years, but, 

 for some reason or other, its beauty and value have never 

 been properly appreciated. 



It is not necessary to speak here of the Chinese Lilac, S. 

 Chinensis, so called, a variety, no doubt, of the common 

 Lilac, a familiar inhabitant of the gardens of northern China, 

 and now well known in those of America and of Europe, or 

 of the Persian Lilac, with its narrow foliage and abundant flow- 

 ers. These plants are both well known to every one who cul- 

 tivates hardy shrubs. There are, however, five other Lilacs 

 in the Arboretum which are still very slightly known to gar- 

 deners, although among them are some of the best garden- 

 plants introduced in recent years. They can be most conve- 

 niently mentioned in the order of their flowering. 



Next week I shall speak of some of the Lilacs which have 

 been more recently brought into cultivation. 



Arnold Arboretum. "■ C. 



[It is interesting -to reproduce, in connection with our 

 correspondent's remarks on Lilacs, the following extract 

 from an article on the genus Syringa, from the pen of the 

 distinguished botanist, Franchet, published in the 1st of 

 July issue of the Revue Horiicole. In speaking of the com- 

 mon Lilac, he tells us : 



It was introduced into western Europe about the middle of 

 the fifteenth century. Belon saw it about 1548 cultivated in 

 the gardens of Constantinople. The first exact information, 

 however, that exists about this plant dates only from 1565, 

 when Mattiolus, in his "Commentaries of Dioscorides," gives 

 in the edition of 1565, on page 1236, an excellent figure of the 

 common Lilac under the name of " Lilac," adding that the 

 figure was not made from the living plant, which he had not 

 seen at that time, but from a painting brought back from Con- 

 stantinople by Busbecq, Ambassador of the Emperor Ferdi- 

 nand I. at the court of Soliman, who lived at Constantinople 

 •first in 1555 and again from 1556 to 1563. Busbecq is gener- 

 ally supposed to have introduced the Lilac into Europe, proba- 

 bly first into Italy, and then perhaps into Bohemia. In any 

 case, Mattiolus, who says that he had not seen the living plant 

 in 1565, relates in a later edition of his work that he had re- 

 ceived before 1570 flowering and fruiting branches sent to him 

 by Cortuso from the Botanic Garden at Padua. According to 

 Cortuso, the plant was common in Africa in his day, and was 

 known under the name of Syringa, a statement that needs 

 confirmation. 



In any case, the cultivation of the Lilac soon became popu- 

 lar in western and central Europe. Clusius, in his " Rariorum 

 Plantarum Historia," published in 1601, says that at that time 

 it was to be found in all the gardens of Belgium and Germany. 

 It appears also under the name of Lilac, as cultivated in the 

 neighborhood of Paris, in the catalogue of Robin, published at 

 the same date ; in the catalogue of R, Morin (1621) it is called 

 Siringa ccerulea Lusitanica. The history of the introduction 

 of the Lilac is certainly well established, and it is surprising 

 that A. P. de Candolle, usually so exact, should have affirmed 



in the "Prodromus" that the Lilac had been brought from 

 Persia in the second half of the sixteenth century, although 

 Boissier does not even mention the plant as usually cultivated 

 in Persia. v 



The native country of the Lilac — that is to say, the region 

 where the shrub grows spontaneously — is still undetermined. 

 Most of the old authors, including Linnaeus, ascribe it to 

 Persia, which is certainly not correct. It was in 1828 that it 

 was first stated that the Lilac belonged to the European flora, 

 Heuffel and Rochel declaring at that time that it grew spon- 

 taneously in the Danubian provinces. Thirty years afterward, 

 in 1858, Heuffel, in his " Enumeratio Plantarum Banatus Te- 

 mesiensis," summed up in the following sentence everything 

 he had said before on the subject : " Very common and truly 

 indigenous in all the region of the Danube from its passage 

 across the Banat to the Thermes of Hercules." Without ab- 

 solutely denying that the Lilac is spontaneous on the banks of 

 the Danube, it is well to remark, first, that the discovery of 

 the shrub, so easily recognized from its abundance in situa- 

 tions where its presence would strike the eyes, did not occur 

 until very late. Second, that it possesses in a remarkable de- 

 gree the power of naturalizing itself and of spreading where it 

 has once obtained a foothold. Third, that in the beginning of 

 the sixteenth century it was, according to the testimony of 

 Clusius, already widely distributed in Germany ; while, on the 

 other hand, the Emperor Ferdinand I., whose ambassador at 

 Constantinople Busbecq was, was also King of Hungary. 

 Fourth, that in the gardens of Pekin are two Lilacs so closely 

 related to the common Lilac that it is not possible to distin- 

 guish them specifically, one of them being the so-called Chi- 

 nese Lilac, or Lilas Varin of gardens. Fifth, that all the other 

 species are incontestably Asiatic — that is to say, of Indian or 

 Chinese origin. It must not be supposed that these doubts 

 with regard to the spontaneousness of the Lilac in the Danu- 

 bian regions are advanced in a spirit of scepticism ; there is 

 here an interesting question of botanical geography, and it is 

 from this point of view only that these doubts have been 

 raised. 



To this Monsieur Edward Andre, who had just returned 

 from a long journey in eastern Europe, adds the following 

 editorial note : 



We can add a few words to the facts which have aided our 

 learned contributor in reaching these conclusions, having just 

 seen the Lilac growing in abundance in a perfectly wild state 

 on the mountains which separate Servia from Bulgaria. We 

 found it most common on the precipices which rise from the 

 narrow defile of the Nischava, near Nisch, where it was min- 

 gled with Staphylea pinnata, Coronilla Enierus, and other 

 spring-blooming shrubs, and enlivened with the masses of the 

 beautiful flowers of Lunaria annua and of Adonis vernalis. 

 Any botanist who had passed in this picturesque region, 

 remote from any habitation, would have believed as we did, 

 that the Lilac was growing there spontaneously. 



The issue of Garden and Forest (No. 165) containing 

 Dr. Christ's letter with regard to the native country 

 of Syringa Josikcea probably did not reach Monsieur 

 Franchet until after he had written his communication. 

 His argument, however, with regard to the naturalization 

 of the common Lilac in Europe in recent years would 

 apply with equal force to S. Josikcea, which is hardly to 

 be distinguished specifically from the widely distributed 

 and variable S. villosa of southern and eastern Asia. It is 

 certainly remarkable that these two plants with showy 

 flowers, and conspicuous throughout the year from the 

 fact that they spread into large masses, should have escaped 

 the attention of botanists and gardeners in the Danubian 

 provinces until 1828 and 1830. Instances of plants, even 

 trees and shrubs, establishing themselves in a compara- 

 tively short time in extra-tropical regions remote from their 

 native countries are numerous. In this country a person 

 unacquainted with the character or composition of our 

 flora and its history would easily believe that the Euro- 

 pean Barberry and the Woadwax {Genista tinctoria) were 

 natives of New England ; and that the Cherokee Rose (a 

 native of China), the Ailanthus and the Melia Azedarach, or 

 Pride of China, were indigenous in many parts of the 

 southern states. Not less remarkable is the spread and 

 entire establishment in the southern Atlantic states of the 

 Chickasa Plum, a native probably of the high plateau at the 

 eastern base of the Rocky Mountains and brought east of 



