43Q 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 185. 



various kinds of the Alutscha Plum, Walnuts, Medlars and 

 Weeping Willows, and even such American trees as the Ca- 

 talpa and the Locust (which a former apiarist brought from 

 Suchum) occasionally appear. Wild Roses of many sorts 

 grow rankly with Crcctegus heterophylla, C. melanocarpa and 

 C. oxyacantha, and a wilderness of Brambles, yielding their 

 products only to the wild sows and bears which have marvel- 

 ously multiplied in these depopulated valleys. 



Soon after leaving this meadow- valley, the road, which be- 

 comes so bad that riders must dismount to advance with 

 safety, reaches a forest of Beech-trees " whose beauty and 

 majesty defy description." This Beech-forest has returned to 

 the condition of a primeval wood. From time to time the 

 path is barred by fallen trunks, so large that one can neither 

 climb them nor see over them, and a long detour must be 

 made to resume the journey, while other fallen giants form 

 archways underneath which the traveler must creep. Only 

 after the most trying efforts on the part of man and beast did 

 Dr. Dieck's party eventually reach the top of a mountain 

 range, and, at about 4,500 feet above the sea-level, the sub- 

 alpine region characterized by Gentiana auriculata, Swertia, 

 Trifolium polyphyllum, Mulgedium and Campanula lactifolia, 

 but especially by the charming dark yellow Crocus Scharojani 

 [Swwaroffianus), which was just beginning to bloom. In one 

 place the beautiful Rhamnus grandiflora (imeretind), of Euro- 

 pean gardens, appeared in quantities, reaching a height 

 of twelve feet — a plant which the author regards as distinct, 

 although Herr Dippel now considers it merely a form of R. 

 alpina. Lunch was eaten in a picturesque ravine (this was 

 the second day of the journey) in the vicinity of Cherry Laurels 

 and Rhododendrons, the wood of which was used to boil the 

 travelers' tea. From the top of a rocky wall nodded the flowers 

 of Vaccinium Arctostaphylos, which was seldom met with in 

 this region, but was found later in Pontus in incredible quan- 

 tities, bearing refreshing fruit. 



After another difficult hour in the Beech-forest the wood 

 gradually gave place to an alpine undergrowth. Instead of 

 Rhododendron Ponticum appeared R. Caucasicum, and, instead 

 of the Beeches, scattered specimens of Pyrus Aucuparia in a 

 gray-green form, Pyrus Aria and Acer Trautvetteri, which re- 

 sembles A. Pseudo-Platanus so closely that the two might easily 

 be confused. In thickets of Rhododendron flavum {Azalea 

 Politico) there grows a form of Salix caprea which, in the 

 color of its branchlets and the shape of its leaves, is so much 

 like the Rhododendron that one must look carefully to distin- 

 guish the two, especially as here they grow to the same height. 

 "I believe," says Dr. Dieck, "that this is a very interesting 

 case of ' mimicry,' which I explain by the fact that animals 

 avoid the leaves of the Azalea, while they relish those of the 

 Willow. A natural effect of this fact is that the large Willows 

 which most nearly resemble the Azalea more easily arrive at 

 the production of flowers and fruit, and thus the Azalea-like 

 form becomes more and more widespread. Between the 

 stones of the mountain-comb and on the shady side of the 

 occasional elevations and rock-points grow Salix arbicscula 

 and 6". Silesiaca, Daphne glomerata and a beautiful dwarf Rose 

 which was still in bloom." 



Almost exhausted, the travelers found rest the second night 

 of their journey on the shore of a miserable little pond of 

 snow-water called by the high-sounding name of Lake Lachda. 

 The view from this plateau, at an elevation of 7,000 feet, is 

 majestic, showing in front, over a deep valley, the snow- 

 mountains of the main Caucasian range, on the slopes of 

 which were seen, for the first time, dark masses of coniferous 

 trees. But both Dr. Dieck and his guide felt unequal to the 

 further effort required to reach this range, and, after a cold 

 night passed on the bare ground, returned to Amtkjel by 

 another path still more difficult than the one they had trav- 

 ersed — so difficult that they were in constant fear of accident 

 and actually lost one of their beasts of burden by a misstep. 

 They were glad, too, of the protection against thieves insured 

 by their meeting with a former acquaintance, a chief of police. 

 But, says Dr. Dieck, in conclusion, " the wonderfully luxuriant 

 vegetation, and the grandiose panorama of the primeval forest 

 which again offered themselves to our astonished eyes, helped 

 us through the pains and troubles of this return journey." 



the family than any of his contemporaries, and to whom all 

 scientific questions relating to it were referred. The defect of 

 his method was that he did not bring the scattered work of his 

 life into anything like one comprehensive study. He had the 

 clue to it himself, but when failing health came in the latter 

 years of his life he was overwhelmed with the enormous 

 amount of material which he had accumulated, and now it is 

 found that he often described the same species more than 

 once under independent names. The difficulty which this 

 state of things would have produced would, in any case, have 

 been considerable. It has been enormously increased by the 

 fact that after his death in 1889 he left his collections to the 

 Imperial Hof Museum at Vienna on the condition that they 

 should be sealed up for twenty-five years. Reichenbach was 

 no longer available to furnish names to the cultivators of 

 Orchids, and his herbarium was not accessible to ascertain 

 what he had done in the past. Something had to be done, and 

 the amateurs of Orchids naturally turned to Kew for help. 

 Kew was not badly equipped for the task. It possessed Lind- 

 ley's collections, the classical starting-point of systematic 

 orchidology. Mr. Bentham had devoted two years at Kew to 

 the elaboration of the family for the Genera Plantarum, and in 

 doing this had sorted the material at Kew into genera, which 

 he clearly defined. Reichenbach, too, had for years passed 

 several weeks of every summer at Kew working on the col- 

 lections there, which he enriched with valuable notes ; and 

 Hooker had worked up in the same herbarium the Indian 

 Orchids, amounting to nearly thirteen hundred species, for the 

 "Flora of British India." Kew, too, possesses a collection of 

 fourteen hundred species of living Orchids out of a total of 

 about five thousand existing species. 



Our correspondent, Mr. Rolfe, has been placed in charge of 

 the Orchid department of the herbarium, and will now pub- 

 lish in the Bulletin descriptions of new garden species, ten of 

 these appearing in this issue. Kew is in a better position to 

 serve as the last resort in Orchid nomenclature than any other 

 botanical establishment. Certainly there is none in this coun- 

 try properly equipped to deal with such subjects, and Ameri- 

 can cultivators of Orchids in doubt about the names of their 

 plants will be forced to communicate with Mr. Rolfe if they de- 

 sire the most authoritative determinations. There is, however, 

 always the risk that when an unnamed Orchid cannot be de- 

 termined in the Kew herbarium that it may not really be un- 

 described, but may be in Reichenbach's collections and already 

 furnished with a name. These are questions which cannot be 

 settled for another quarter of a century. For practical pur- 

 poses it has therefore been decided at Kew to assume that any 

 such Orchid is new, and to describe it with an appropriate 

 name. "It must be the aim of every botanist to avoid the 

 multiplication of names and the piling up of synonyms. But 

 the world cannot wait on posterity, and some one, a quarter of 

 a century hence, may have the patience to disinter from Reich- 

 enbach's herbarium, if it is thought worth while, any names 

 which have the prescription of priority." 



The August issue of the Bulletin of Miscellaneous Informa- 

 tion from the Royal Gardens at Kew contains a statement of 

 the position of Kew with regard to the naming of Orchids. 

 During the middle of the present century Dr. Lindley was 

 recognized every where as the authority upon these plants, and 

 all questions relating to their determination were entrusted to 

 him. On his death the Orchid mantle fell on the shoulders of 

 the late Dr. H. G. Reichenbach, who was more familiar with 



The subject of " Country Roads and Highways " is taken 

 up in Lippincott s Magazine for September by Mr. John 

 Gilmer Speed. He well says, "It would be a waste of space 

 to attempt to prove that our common country roads are, as a 

 very general thing, as bad as they can be ; they are so generally 

 bad, indeed, that I have met native-born Americans, who had 

 never traveled abroad, who could not be brought to believe 

 that good roads were possible." And his words are equally 

 true when he adds that common roads are " at once the means 

 and the measure of civilization," that we have for long been 

 paying a very heavy penalty for the neglect of our highways 

 in a tax upon agriculture, so great that " the farmers are get- 

 ting behind more and more every year, and are generally dis- 

 satisfied," and that "very few of them know what is the chief 

 cause of their lack of prosperity, for they have never had 

 good roads, nor did their fathers and grandfathers." Mr. 

 Speed then recounts the measures which have been taken or 

 proposed in various states for the amelioration of the roads, 

 and then, to show the extreme need of legislation, describes 

 the roads in the New Jersey township in which he has his 

 own country home, and which is one of the very few in that 

 state untraversed by any railroad. The roads were laid out 

 about a hundred and fifty years ago, probably following the 

 " hap-hazard paths and trails which ran through the woods 

 before any clearings were made. From the township village 

 to the county town the distance is about seven miles, and the 

 difference in elevation about two hundred and fifty feet. 

 There is a valley running all the way between the two places. 

 Had the highway been located in this valley the distance be- 

 tween the points would have been less than it is, and there 



