37° 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 180. 



should, when they are large enough, be set out in a bed of rich 

 soil. When cold weather comes the plants should be covered 

 with a few dry leaves and protected by a frame of rough 

 boards. In early spring they may be uncovered and planted 

 in the places where they are to flower. From this method we 

 have had the best results with the least trouble. Hollyhocks 

 like rich soil, and should be watered well in dry weather ; 

 strong stakes are necessary to protect them in rough winds. 

 I am not aware that any remedy has been found for the disease, 

 but it there has been, many lovers of these flowers would be 

 glad to know of it. 



South Lancaster, Mass. E. 0. Orpet. 



Correspondence. 

 A Forest Under the Equator. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — The port of entry to the Amazon Valley is the city of 

 Para, which stands on the southern bank of the great river, 

 and fears no rival city on the northern bank because that shore 

 is top unhealthy and too difficult of access ever to become in- 

 habited. With never a blighting frost, and with plenty of 

 moisture, for a daily shower is expected to fall throughout the 

 year, it is not strange that every inch of fertile soil under a 

 vertical sun teems with vegetation, so that this little-known 

 city of the south is embowered in a luxuriant forest that 

 sweeps away in every direction as far as the eye can reach, 

 draping the whole land with fadeless green and veiling the 

 face of the continent for 2,000 miles westward to the foot of 

 the Andes. 



During the two years in which I lived in Para many longings 

 for my New England home were alleviated by walks in the 

 narrow forest-paths that terminate the city streets. The land- 

 scape is nearly the same at all seasons. Very few of the trees 

 shed all their foliage before the new buds expand, and one 

 leaf at a time falls silently, while others as silently unfold. 

 Few flowers are found blooming freely in the shady recesses 

 of this woodland. Occasionally by the path a solitary scarlet 

 Passion-flower flames like a beacon from the green drapery to 

 which it clings. In partially cleared spaces, or upon the out- 

 skirts of the wood, I often saw white Convolvuli, occasionally 

 the purple and white Passion-flower, and also a plant which 

 resembled the scarlet-flowered Canna ; the blossom was quite 

 small — perhaps because of the deep shade in which it un- 

 furled its wide green leaves. Many of the trees have small or 

 inconspicuous flowers, but some of the tallest ones open 

 showy clusters of purple or of yellow flowers. 



The farther we advance into the forest the less dense be- 

 comes the undergrowth, so that one catches more extended 

 glimpses of the vast wilderness that sweeps away on either 

 hand. But it is far from easy to make one's" way from one 

 path to another as the tree-trunks are everywhere linked and 

 bound together by gigantic vines or sipos, and you begin to un- 

 derstand what is meant by climbing trees. Their flexible 

 stems twine and creep in every direction or fall in loops strong 

 enough to make a swing for two or three adults. Their leaves 

 are mostly borne when the leaning stems have at last wound 

 their way up to the sunlight that sifts into this dense canopy of 

 foliage which is supported by the columnar trunks of the trees. 

 Underneath this high green firmament the bare, brown, vine- 

 like stems and dark tree-trunks are here and there interspersed 

 with long brown threads that dangle over the pathway and 

 sway with the passing breeze. These woody lianas, sus- 

 pended from the branches above, are not the ends of vines 

 that have lost hold upon their supports, but they are the air- 

 roots of epiphytal plants that are growing on the interlocking 

 boughs. Some hang like scattered threads of fringe, other 

 strands are clustered, but all are stretching and reaching 

 toward the bosom of the earth, and when they touch the 

 ground they quickly strike their rootlets into the moist soil, no 

 doubt giving new lease of life to the plants lodged on the 

 tree above. 



The green leaves of the enormous air-plants or parasites 

 give tone to the grays and browns of the bare trunks, and to 

 the vine-stalks that appear almost sombre in the semi-twilight 

 of the woods. It is a marvelous sight to see wide, flag-like 

 leaves growing luxuriantly in massive clusters at a dizzy 

 height, upon the side of a gigantic tree-trunk. In some 

 strange way many of them have been supplied with a big 

 lump of black soil. One might imagine some grotesque gar- 

 dener had uptorn the huge root from the ground, and, in some 

 magic way, flung it, with the soil adhering to it, "right side 

 up with care," against its perpendicular perch. Too rank a 

 growth, or some mischievous flying missile may dislodge 



one, but many are left to cling among Orchids or Ferns, whose 

 home is high on the bark of the tree. 



Except in the most moist and densely shaded parts of the 

 forest, the ground is thickly covered with Lycopodiums. They 

 grow a foot or more in height and then bend over, to take root 

 again at their tips, like Walking Ferns. This foot-deep, dark 

 green, mossy cushion is, in itself, worth all the trouble it takes 

 to visit it. In the swampy localities we find Caladiums that 

 are especially graceful in style of growth, and have very 

 brilliant markings. Another plant, whose thick, fleshy and 

 heart-shaped leaves resemble the foliage of the Caladium is 

 the Pothos. These climbing shrubs twine their cord-like 

 stems around the trunks of the trees, here and there emitting 

 false roots, by means ~oi which they attach themselves to the 

 bark of their appropriated support, and clamber on toward the 

 light that filters through interlacing boughs overhead. 



An exceedingly interesting study is found in the almost end- 

 less variety in the foliage. There is every conceivable form 

 between the fine pinnate leaves of the many Mimosas and the 

 sword-shaped leaves of Urania Amazonica, wild Banana, 

 which measure eight feet iii length by one in breadth, and 

 stand upright from the top of a five or six foot stem. No 

 words are adequate to express one's admiration for a single 

 one of these stately, colossal trees, and a chill of awe comes 

 with the effort to estimate the number of these giants in the 

 vast forest whose majestic and imposing beauty is the slow 

 and steady growth of unrecorded ages. 

 Lordsburg, Cat Mrs. W. F. Wheeler. 



Community Gardens. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — The pleasure of gardening would be increased if we 

 were not confined by fashion and custom to a limited num- 

 ber of plants, so that gardens are repeated over and over 

 again. And to make the repetition more marked, not only 

 are the same plants used, but many of them are trimmed and 

 pruned to the same artificial forms. . The Rose is indispensa- 

 ble, but its season of bloom is short, and the half-dozen larger 

 Pinks in general cultivation are fine and pleasing. These, 

 with perhaps a dozen other plants, form the staple garden 

 material over considerable sections of the country. 



If instead of confining ourselves to a few stock plants, beau- 

 tiful as they are, there were added to these some of the really 

 attractive flowers which can readily be bought, but which are 

 seldom seen, the garden would have a continuation of bloom 

 and verdure throughout the entire season. There is unlim- 

 ited variety in the graceful natural effect of shrubs and trees, 

 but the Maple, the Willow and the Poplar are not allowed to 

 assume their natural grace, but are often pollarded or pruned 

 into formality and stiffness, while evergreens are fashioned 

 into even more grotesque forms. 



In order to prevent this endless repetition of gardens, each 

 fashioned after the same model, I have a suggestion to offer 

 which may be too fanciful for practical use, but which may 

 perhaps widen the scope of some one's thought or encour- 

 age some one to larger enterprise in gardening. What an endless 

 variety of things, little and big, might be grown if a commu- 

 nity would organize to grow them. My neighbor A could pur- 

 chase, plant and enjoy a hundred Sedums, more or less ; B 

 could fill his garden with Cactuses ; and the Misses C. could 

 cover their two or three hundred feet of rock-margined bor- 

 der with such pretty low plants as the mountain, alpine and 

 spiny Alyssums, the Egyptian and golden Yarrows, the three 

 or four ^Ethionemas, as many Androsaces, Arabises and 

 Aubrietias, the silvery prostrate and dense Antennarias, A. 

 dioica and A. tomentosa, the gray-foliaged and white-flowered 

 Cerastiums, the creeping and tufted Astragaluses, the rosy and 

 white-headed Armerias, and even such mild, free and lightly 

 spreading little specimens as our own native Hosackia Pur- 

 shiana, whose claims to garden space I am, I imagine, the 

 first to advocate. 



Behind all the above edging species, our friends, the Misses 

 C, could set the more brilliant Figworts, the taller and shorter 

 Mimuluses, Pentstemons, Alonsoas, Antirrhinums, Calceola- 

 rias, Nemesias, Linarias, Lophospermums, Digitalises, etc. 

 One entire garden could be filled with the twenty or thirty spe- 

 cies of cultivated Oxalis, the advertised twenty or thirty 

 species and varieties of Lobelia and Veronica, with Gypso- 

 philas, Galiums and Statices added to mystify and unite the 

 whole. 



The Crucifers, the Pinks, the Pea tribe, the Composites, the 

 succulent Mesembryanthemums, the Night-shades, the bulb- 

 ous plants would each supply a garden-enclosure with candi- 

 dates sufficient to fill it. 



