November 4, 1891.] 



Garden and Forest 



519 



In summer the charm of a garden is in its coolness and 

 shade, in the dark shelter of thick trees and the quiet of a 

 shaded arbor. In the autumn we seek the sunshine and 

 desire color and warmth, wishing to forget the coming 

 cold and the swift fading of leaf and flower. 



It is like the natural clinging of man to life which increases 

 as years steal upon him. Youth does not dread death as 

 age shrinks from it. The habit of living becomes stronger 

 as we descend the hill, and the suggestion of interruption 

 seems impertinent. The late scentless flowers are more 

 precious than the summer Roses, for their time will soon 

 be gone. Nature cheats us with her autumn splendor, 

 which beguiles the mind into forgetting that it is the pre- 

 cursor of decay. While we admire the glory of a Maple- 

 grove, we do not realize that the storms of winter are 

 gathering behind the forest. When the mountains are pur- 

 ple in the low sunlight we forget the snows that shall soon 

 whiten their summits, and there is wisdom in this natural 

 instinct that forbids foreboding when joy is at hand, which 

 can rejoice in the present without seeking to lift the cur- 

 tain of the future. 



Let us rejoice, then, in the autumn flowers ; in the soft 

 atmosphere that clothes the world with beauty; in the 

 great moon's yellow light ; in the round, soft clouds, and 

 the wild skurry of the dun rack that scuds across the 

 heavens when the breeze rises. Full soon will that search- 

 ing wind scatter the jewel-like leaves, and tear the last petal 

 from the shrinking flowers, while the grass grows brown 

 and sear, and the soft earth stiffens like a body from which 

 life has departed. Too soon will the valiant head of the 

 last Daisy be buried in a mantle of snow, and the leaden 

 sky bend low above a frozen earth. Let us rejoice, then, 

 while we may, for the days shorten, and with them our 

 summer joys and the lives of the autumn flowers. 



We are indebted to Miss Graceanna Lewis for the 

 privilege of publishing the following letter from the ven- 

 erable President of the Delaware County (Pennsylvania) 

 Forestry Association : 



Esteemed Friend, — At thy request I visited the trees of which 

 I spoke at the last forestry meeting, and which I knew sixty 

 years ago. I found them looking very much as they did then, 

 and not very perceptibly larger. The first one is on the farm 

 of John Beeson, in Upper Chichester, near the Baltimore & 

 Philadelphia Railroad, and about half a mile west of Ogden 

 Station. It is a Chestnut-tree, and at three feet high its cir- 

 cumference is twenty-seven feet one inch and a half ; at six 

 feet high, it is twenty-four feet five inches in circumference, 

 and one foot from the ground it is thirty feet nine inches in 

 circumference. About one-fourth of the body of the tree is 

 dead up to the limbs, which are about twelve feet high. The 

 top is decaying in many places, but it still measures eighty- 

 seven feet from out to out. 



The second one is a Cherry-tree on the farm of George 

 Broomall, abouta quarter of a mile south-east of the Chestnut- 

 tree. It is fourteen feet and a tenth in circumference at three 

 feet high, and fourteen feet at six feet high. The top measures 

 seventy-one feet and three-tenths from out to out. This tree 

 is in full bearing, having had a large crop of cherries taken 

 from it this year. I found still enough cherries to remind me 

 of the taste of them sixty years ago. The fruit is natural, quite 

 as large as the Bleeding Heart cherry and quite as sweet, and 

 is black in color. I learn that many trees in the neighborhood 

 have been grafted from it, but it is said that the fruit on the 

 grafted trees is not quite as large as that on the original tree. 



The third is a Beech-tree in Lower Chichester, on the Naa- 

 man's Creek Road, and it is supposed to mark the place where 

 the circular boundary-line between Pennsylvania and Dela- 

 ware crosses that road. At three feet high it is fifteen feet 

 and eight-tenths in circumference. It is quite a nourishing 

 tree yet, the top being ninety feet from out to out. 



The Cherry and the Beech appear to be good for some years 

 to come. The limbs of the Cherry can be reached from the 

 ground, and I recognized those of them by the aid of which 

 I climbed the tree when a boy. The Beech is covered to 

 the height of convenient reaching with the initials of many 

 persons whom I knew in that neighborhood many years ago. 

 Thy friend, John M. Broomall. 



Filices Mexicanse. — III. 



WE continue, this week, the enumeration of the Ferns 

 collected in the states of Nuevo Leon, Jalisco, San 

 Louis Potosi and Machoacan, Mexico, during the seasons 

 of 1888, 1889 and 1890, by Mr. C. G. Pringle, of Charlotte, 

 Vermont, together with notes and descriptions of new 

 species and varieties by Mr. George E. Davenport, of Med- 

 ford, Massachusetts. 



Llavia CORDIFOLIA, Lagasca (1990). Shaded rocky cations, 

 Sierra Madre, near Monterey, July, 1888. Mr. Pringle wrote of 

 this Fern that it was " seen chiefly in a broad cation of the 

 Sierra Madre near Monterey, through which flowed a brook 

 which had bro ugh t down from the mountain and strewn along 

 its borders piles of stones of various sizes. Among these 

 stones this plant found favorite conditions, and grew in great 

 clumps two or three feet high." 



Lygodium Mexicanum, Presl. (3318). Low forests, Las Pal- 

 mas ; stems twining ten to twelve feet on shrubs ; October, 

 1890. 



Nephrolepis cordifolia, Presl. (1835). Wet cliffs near 

 Gaudalajara, December, 1888. 



NoTHOCHLiENA Aschenborniana, Klotzsch (3297). Shaded 

 ledges, San Jose Pass, October, 1890. 



Nothochl/ena aurantiaca, D.C. Eaton (i84oand2587). Dry 

 shaded ledges and cliffs of the Barranca, October and Novem- 

 ber, 1888-1889. 



Nothochltena brachypus, J. Smith (1787). Damp shaded 

 banks of gullies and ditches near Guadalajara, November, 1888. 



Nothochl^ena Candida, Hooker (2021). Sierra Madre, near 

 Monterey, June, 1888. 



Nothochl^ena Lemmoni, D. C. Eaton, var. straminea, n. var. 

 (2830). Rocky hills near Guadalajara, December, 1888. A 

 form with yellowish brown, nearly straw-colored, rounder 

 (more nearly terete), and stouter stipites, and rachises less dis- 

 tinctly channeled than in the type ; scales of the rhizoma and 

 stipes lighter colored than' in the normal form, and with 

 broader, more membranaceous margins ; sori also lighter 

 colored, browner. The whole aspect of the plant strikingly 

 different, especially in color, from the normal form, even as 

 collected in Mexico by Dr. Palmer, and appearing to me wor- 

 thy of recognition as a good variety. Dr. Palmer's 701, from 

 Chapala, 1886, is identical with this, but shows a nearer ap- 

 proach to the normal form than Mr. Pringle's plant, and 

 the deciduous scales have disappeared altogether from the 

 stipites. 



NOTHOCHIJENA nivea, Desvaux, var. flava, Hooker (2581). 

 Limestone ledges, mountains near Monterey, June, 1888. 



NoTHOCHLiENA rigida, it. sp. (2599). Root-stock rhizomata- 

 ceous, moderately stout, clothed with dark brownish black 

 opaque scales ; stipites stout, rigid, approximate, 3' to 4' long, 

 and, as well as the main rachis, terete, dark chestnut-brown, 

 dull-polished, sparsely clothed from the base upward with dark 

 brown opaque scales and a deciduous white powder ; laminae 

 8' to 12', or more, long, 2' to 3' broad, only once really pinnate, 

 but appearing as if bipinnate, long-lanceolate, broadest in the 

 middle, with upward of twenty or more pairs of sessile pinnae ; 

 pinnae acuminate-lanceolate, deeply cut almost to the rachises 

 into 8 to 12 linear, pinnatifid, obtuse divisions on each side, 

 those on the lower side much the longest, lowermost pinnae 

 gradually reduced ; upper surface naked, under thickly coated 

 with white powder ; sori light brown ; margins slightly re- 

 curved. 



Habitat : Limestone ledges, Sierra de la Silla, Monterey, 

 May 31st, 1889. This fine new Nothochlaena bears some resem- 

 blance to N. Lemmoni, and some of the smaller specimens 

 might easily be mistaken for that species ; it is, however, a 

 much coarser plant, with more compound fronds and a more 

 rigid habit. Professor Eaton, whose kindly assistance is con- 

 tinually placing me under obligations which I take pleasure in 

 acknowledging, observes, also, that the slightly revolute mar- 

 gins indicate a much closer approach to Cheilanthes than in the 

 case oiN. Lemmoni, to which I would add that there is about this 

 Fern also, as distinguished from N. Lemmoni, that indescrib- 

 able atmosphere, or feeling, which oftentimes enables one to 

 distinguish one Fern from another by the mere handling. The 

 illustration on page 521 is from a drawing by Mr. C. E. Faxon. 



Nothochl<ena Schaffneri, Underwood (in litt), var. 

 Mexicana [N. Nealleyi, Seaton, var. Mexicana, Davenport, 

 in Botatiical Gazette, February, 1891). Dry, shaded ledges of the 

 Barranca, November, 1888. No. 1864. Fronds larger, more 

 rigid and more compound than in the type. Dr. Palmer's 555, 

 from the canon of Rio Blanco, September, 1886, belongs here, 



