39 6 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 182. 



dozen species of herbaceous Himalayan plants, sometimes 

 cultivated in greenhouses. 



Decumaria barbara is quite at home in the neigborhood of 

 Philadelphia, and in Laurel Hill Cemetery it is quite largely 

 planted, and clings to walls as closely as English Ivy. Its leaves 

 are large and lustrous, and it will certainly be used more gen- 

 erally when its good qualities are appreciated as they should be. 



"The total number of trees and shrubs indigenous to this 

 country," wrote Downing in the year 1846, "is about 530." 

 How largely our knowledge of the products of the United 

 States has advanced since this time will be seen when we note 

 that 420 indigenous species of trees are now recognized within 

 their area, while the number of indigenous shrubs must be 

 nearly a thousand. 



The old saying, that "language is a bundle of fossil meta- 

 phors," is well illustrated by the word disseminate, which, 

 etymologically, means "to scatter seed," and, as a writer on 

 plant-life recently remarked, " points to the fact that everywhere 

 in nature seeds are scattered broadcast, infinite pains being 

 taken by the mother-plant for their general diffusion over wide 

 areas of woodland, plain or prairie." 



We have received from our correspondent, Monsieur 

 Charles Naudin, a photograph of a noble flowering speci- 

 men of Yucca filifera (see Garden and Forest, vol. i., pp. 

 78 and 79), taken in the gardens of the Villa Thuret. Judged 

 by the height of the man standing by the tree, it must be from 

 twenty to thirty feet high, and forms one of a group of five 

 specimens, all about equal in height. 



" The principle which would govern us," wrote Downing 

 nearly fifty years ago, " if we were planting the streets of rural 

 towns is this : Select the finest indigenous tree or trees, such 

 as the soil and climate of the place will bring to the highest 

 perfection." Unfortunately, the sound and sensible advice 

 thus briefly conveyed is almost as sorely needed to-day as 

 when Downing's words were written. 



" Midway between Fifteenth and Sixteenth Streets," says the 

 New York Sun, " at the curb lies a broken brown stone which 

 bears the inscription, ' Union Square. Founded 1832.' It is a 

 part of the pavement, and yet New Yorkers have walked that 

 way for forty years without noticing this modest official rec- 

 ord. This was a wild locality in 1832. A farm-house stood 

 at the junction of the Bowery road and the road to Blooming- 

 dale in the upper part of the present little park, and dust and 

 blackberries abounded at the road-sides. The city straight- 

 ened out the streets at that time into a square, and the park 

 was an afterthought. The Hon. Walter Bowne was Mayor at 

 the time." 



A dispatch to The Tribune states that " next winter will see 

 the shipment of an enormous quantity of fresh vegetables 

 from southern California to New York and other eastern 

 cities. The railroads have given a rate of three cents per 

 pound, which allows a big profit on all vegetables that will 

 bear transportation. Tomatoes, peas, beans, new potatoes, 

 cauliflower and other vegetables can be supplied by southern 

 California from the 1st of December to the 1st of March, 

 during which time there is practically no competition from 

 Florida. It is claimed that this industry will eclipse fruit- 

 growing, as it will stimulate a demand for fresh vegetables 

 where canned goods are now used." 



The botanical name of the Carnation, Dianthus, signifies 

 Jove's flower, being a contraction of Dios anthos, while the 

 English name seems to have been bestowed to characterize 

 the flesh-colored hue of some of the commoner kinds. Its 

 earliest form appears to have been "Carnadine," and Drayton 

 long ago wrote: "The brave Carnation ... so of his color 

 called." In the last century Carnations were in special favor 

 in Holland and England, and we may read in a number of the 

 Spectator that " now and then a few fanciful people spend all 

 their time in the cultivation of a single Tulip or a Carnation." 

 Fifty years ago between three and four hundred varieties of 

 the Carnation were already noted in English catalogues. 



Mr. Sereno Watson's eighteenth contribution to American 

 botany, reprinted from the twenty-sixth volume of the Pro- 

 ceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has 

 appeared. It contains descriptions of some new North Ameri- 

 can plants, chiefly of the United States, with a revision of the 

 American species of the genus Erythronium, in which Mr. 

 Watson now recognizes thirteen North American species ; de- 

 scriptions of new Mexican plants collected chiefly by Mr. C. G. 

 Pringle in 1889 and 1890, and including a few new genera and 



several new species ; a note upon a wild species of Zea, from 

 Mexico, and upon a small collection of plants made in the 

 island of Ascension by Mr. E. G. Loomis, of the Nautical 

 Almanac Bureau, during the visit of the United States Eclipse 

 Expedition to the island in 1889. 



The editor of the Country Gentleman says that he once re- 

 ceived some Peach-cions in summer, and the sender had left 

 their leaves on to shade them and to keep them from drying 

 up. Of course, these leaves sent a great deal of watery 

 vapor into the dry summer air, and in a few hours the shoots 

 were withered. If he had cut all the leaves off, leaving only 

 the stumps of the leaf-stalks, they would have remained plump 

 and fresh. We often see radishes offered for sale in grocery- 

 windows with all the leaves on, and in a few hours they are 

 shrunk and withered. If the leaves of radishes, beets and 

 similar vegetables are cut off at once as soon as the roots are 

 taken from the ground they will keep plump and fresh. If the 

 leaves are left on trees which are cut down in summer they 

 will pump the sap out of the timber and hasten the seasoning 

 of the wood, which might otherwise become sap-rotten. 



A photograph recently reproduced in the North-western 

 Lumberman showed a redwood plank of extraordinary size, 

 measuring sixteen feet five inches in width by twelve feet 

 nine inches in length and five inches in thickness. It was cut 

 from a tree thirty-five feet in diameter and three hundred feet 

 tall, being hewn out of the stump after the tree was cut at 

 about twenty-eight feet above the ground. A locomotive, 

 attached to a block and tackle, was needed to lower it, and 

 two men were occupied for a month in roughly preparing it 

 for shipment. The price of this labor, added to the cost of 

 transportation, amounted to some $3,000, after the plank had 

 been taken by water to San Francisco. The tree stood in 

 Humboldt County, California, and the plank, after being ex- 

 hibited in various cities, will probably be a feature of the 

 World's Fair at Chicago. A specially constructed car is re- 

 quired for its transportation. 



" After some trouble," wrote Fortune, in his account of his 

 travels in the Malay Archipelago in 1845, "I discovered the 

 locality of the beautiful Phalcenopsis amabilis. I was in the 

 habit of making an Indian's hut in the wood my headquarters 

 for a certain time, where I held a sort of market for the pur- 

 chase of orchidaceous plants. The ground in front of the 

 hut was usually strewed with these plants in the state in which 

 they had been cut from the trees, and often covered with 

 flowers. The Phalasnopsis in particular was very beautiful at 

 this time. I was most anxious to get large specimens of this 

 plant, and offered a dollar, which was a high sum in an Indian 

 forest, for the largest specimen which should be brought to 

 me. The lover of this beautiful tribe of plants will easily 

 imagine the delight I felt when I saw two Indians approaching 

 with a plant of extraordinary size, having ten or twelve branch- 

 ing flower-stalks upon it and upward of a hundred flowers in 

 full bloom." This plant was successfully transported to Eng- 

 land and established in the garden of the Horticultural Society, 

 and, although it had been somewhat cut to get it into the 

 packing-case, was by far the largest specimen then to be seen 

 in Europe. 



In his Sylva, written two centuries ago, Evelyn notes, 

 among other giant Linden-trees in Germany, one of such size 

 and antiquity that it was recognized in the name of the town 

 in Wurtemberg where it grew, this being called Neustadt-an- 

 der-Linden. He describes it as measuring more than twenty- 

 seven feet in circumference, and covering, with the spread of 

 its branches, a space four hundred and three feet in diameter, 

 and says that it was "set about with divers columns and 

 monuments of stone (now eighty-two in number and formerly 

 above a hundred more) which several princes and noble per- 

 sons have adorned, and which, as so many pillars, serve like- 

 wise to support the umbrageous and venerable boughs." Even 

 then, Evelyn continues, the tree had once been " much ampler, 

 as the ruins and distances of the columns declare, which the 

 rude soldiers have greatly impared." Some of the inscriptions 

 on the stones were copied by him, the oldest, bearing a date, 

 having been cut in the year 1550. In 1837 this giant still sur- 

 vived, and a drawing then made of it, for Loudon's Arboretum, 

 showed its trunk surrounded by a wooden balustrade raised 

 on a coping of stone, and its limbs supported by no less 

 than 108 columns. The people of the village being in the 

 habit of sitting in the tree and eating, several Gooseberry- 

 bushes had sprung up in the crevices of the bark, and their 

 fruit was gathered and sold to visitors. It would be interest- 

 ing to know whether this tree still survives in the year 1891. 



