436 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 186. 



north of their native home. R. glutinosa and R. hispida 

 grow naturally only in the southern Alleghany Mountains, 

 at the same altitude, and nearly at the same elevation, as 

 Magnolia Fraseri, but are hardy several degrees farther 

 north than that tree. 



The nature of the buds of Cladrastis, which appear to 

 have escaped the attention of botanists, also enables this 

 tree to flourish many degrees north of the somewhat re- 

 stricted region west of the southern Alleghany Mountains, 

 which is its home. The buds are sub-petiolar, but I do 

 not find that it has been explained that, instead of a single 

 bud, there are under each leaf-stalk four, superposed and 

 closely compressed together, forming by mutual pressure 

 a rather thick cone, each bud being covered with thin lus- 

 trous scales. The lowest one is minute and rudimentary, 

 and probably it is only the upper one which develops into 

 a branch. If this should be injured, then perhaps the next 

 one takes its place. The four sub-petiolar buds of Cladras- 

 tis serve to keep it separate from the Asiatic Maackia 

 (united by Mr. Bentham with Cladrastis), which has soli- 

 tar}'' supra-petiolar buds, besides differing in habit, in 

 inflorescence, in its accrescent persistent bud-scales, and 

 in some floral particulars from the American tree, as has 

 already been pointed out by Maximowicz. 



The Jamaica Dogwood, a fine tropical tree which occurs 

 on the keys of southern Florida, was described by Linnaeus 

 in the first edition of the "Species Plantarum " as Erythrina 

 Piscipula. Later he recognized it was not an Erythrina, 

 and made a new genus, Piscidia, to receive it, changing, 

 however, the specific name in the second edition of the 

 " Species Plantarum " from Piscidia to Erythrina. The 

 successors of Linnaeus have written Piscidia Erythrina, but 

 if the oldest specific name given to a plant by Linnaeus, or 

 by any subsequent author, is the name by which the plant 

 is to be known, then that of the Jamaica Dogwood must 

 be Piscidia Piscipula. 



The synonymy of the Water Locust is confusing. It 

 was first described by Linnaeus in the first edition of the 

 "Species Plantarum" as a variety of Gleditsia triacanthos. 

 Miller, in the eighth edition of his Dictionary (1768), called 

 it G. inermis, which would be the oldest name for the 

 Water Locust had it not been already appropriated by Lin- 

 naeus in the second edition of the "Species " (1763), in 

 which there is a G. inermis taken up from a plant of 

 Duhamel's which Mr. Bentham {Trans. L.inn. Soc, xxx., 

 557) was probably right in considering the spineless form 

 of G. iriacanthos, although Duhamel himself supposed that 

 it might be the Acacia Javanica of Plukenet (" Phyt," 1. 1 23, f. 3). 

 The identity of this plant was further confused by Linnaeus 

 referring to it Miller's figure ("Icon.," t. 5), which represents 

 Calliandra Housloni, a tropical American plant, which, Mr. 

 Bentham remarks, could "only have been quoted by Lin- 

 naeus at second hand or through some inadvertence." In 

 any case, the G. inermis of the second edition of the " Spe- 

 cies " cannot refer to the Water Locust, which still ap- 

 peared there as a variety of G. iriacanthos, so that Miller's 

 name, being a synonym, is not available, and the next 

 oldest name, that of Marshall (1785), G. aquatica, will have 

 to be adopted. Fortunately, the name is the best of all 

 those which have been given to this tree, which grows in 

 water or in very wet places. 



In the spelling of the generic name I have followed Lin- 

 naeus in writing Gleditsia, although most modern authors 

 have changed his name to Gleditschia. C. S. Sargent. 



New or Little-known Plants. 

 Cereus (Pilocereus) Sargentianus. 



THIS plant has eight or more stems from the same 

 base, the sterile stems two to five feet tall, five or six 

 angled with obtuse ribs, separated by broad, deep intervals ; 

 the woolly areolae closely set and touching each other on 

 the ribs, the gray spines stout, straight, one-fourth to three- 

 fourths of an inch long, in clusters of ten or more ; the 

 flower-bearing stems ten to fifteen feet tall, erect, five or 



six angled, intervals usually shallow, the ribs closely set 

 with woolly oblong areolae, each bearing about fifty long, 

 flexuous, grayish or white spines which almost hide the 

 small inconspicuous flowers. 



The flower is of a delicate shade between rose-pink and 

 flesh-color, an inch long and less than an inch across ; 

 petals about twenty-four in number, thirteen scales in the 

 ovary ; anthers yellow, filaments, style and stigmata white. 



The Indian name of this Old-man Cactus is Carambuya 

 or Garambulla, and it is called by some Hombre viejo or 

 Cabeza vieja, according to Brandegee, who found it from 

 Comondu to San Quintin, Lower California. 



I have referred this plant hitherto to Cereus Schollii, 

 Engelm. (vide Garden and Forest, iii. , 439), and Brandegee 

 (Proc. Cat. Acad., 2d ser., ii., 163) has referred to it by the 

 same name. 



I first found it near San Quintin, Lower California, in 

 1886. The fruit I have not seen, but it is said to be edible, 

 without spines, red, and attaining a much larger size than 

 the fruit of C. Scholtii, as is evident in the illustration (see 

 page 437), from a photograph taken by Messrs. Roscoe 

 Howard and Russell Gannis. 



The plant differs also in the number and characters of 

 the spines, and will probably prove to be a distinct species. 

 I therefore venture to name it provisionally for Professor 

 C. S. Sargent, whose interest in the Mexican flora is well 

 known. 



San Diego, Cal. C. R. OrCUtt. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 



THE most interesting event of the week in the open- 

 air garden is the flowering of Lilium Parkmanni in 

 the Knap Hill nursery, Woking, where only it can be seen. 

 By reputation this Lily is known to all who take an interest 

 in Lilies, but comparatively few have seen it in bloom, as 

 it flowers when no unusual display attracts visitors to the 

 great Surrey nursery. As every Lily-grower knows, we 

 are indebted to America for this magnificent Lily, consid- 

 ered by many the queen of the whole family, and it is a 

 singular fact that none of our hybridists have obtained 

 such successful results as did Mr. Parkman, though they 

 have tried over and over again to raise a similar hybrid 

 between L. aurafum and L. speciosum, which are the 

 parents of Parkman's Lily. Neither is it likely that this Lily 

 will ever become common, owing to the slow way in which 

 it increases. For thirteen years has Mr. Anthony Waterer 

 been trying to make the most of the four bulbs he bought 

 from the raiser at the highest figure that has ever been 

 paid for a hardy herbaceous plant. Those who do not 

 know what Parkman's Lily is like must imagine a very 

 large L. auratum flower, a foot across from tip to tip Of the 

 petals, each banded like auratum with yellow and stained 

 with the richest carmine-crimson and broadly edged with 

 white. Every Lily specialist here is eagerly waiting for 

 its distribution, and, no doubt, it will then soon find its 

 way back to the land of its birth. 



An uncommonly successful meeting was held this week 

 by the Royal Horticultural Society at Westminster, and 

 quite a number of novelties were placed before the com- 

 mittees. Gladioli from Kelway, and Dahlias from various 

 growers, were the special features, but several other in- 

 teresting plants were there, and especially Orchids. 

 There seems to be now a continuous succession of hybrid 

 Orchids, for at every meeting one sees new ones. The 

 most important new hybrid shown on this occasion was 

 from Messrs. Veitch. This was a Laelio-Cattleya named 

 Nyssa, a cross between Lcelia (Catt/eya) crispa and C. labiala, 

 var. Warsceiczii. The progeny is intermediate, both in 

 growth and flower, the latter being somewhat larger than 

 those of L. crispa. The sepals are a delicate mauve and 

 spread out widely ; the labellum is larger than in L. crispa 

 and quite shows the dilation of that of C. labia la ; the color 

 is an intensely deep purple-crimson, surrounding an in- 



