December 9, 1891.! 



Garden and Forest. 



58i 





tion, but it comes under the head of evergreen rather than 

 late deciduous shrubs. 



Nearly all the Privets are admirable for the late persisting 

 quality of their foliage, the only exceptions in the Arboretum 

 collection being Ligustrum Ibota, which is leafless, and the 

 closely related plant called L. Amurense, which only retains 

 tufts of foliage on the ends of the more vigorous shoots. 



The true Forsythia Viridissima is often conspicuous by 

 holding its leaves late. Elceagnus a?igustifolia and E. umbel- 

 lata and the Hippophaes retain a large quantity of fresh-look- 

 ing leaves of no particular interest or ornamental value. 



Finally, the fine leafy condition of Smilax glauca seems to 

 show that it is at this season superior to the common Green- 

 brier (S. rotundifolia) and to S. Pseudo-China, which have very 

 few leaves left among their tangle of prickly stems. 



Arnold Arboretum. /• G. Jack. 



Fig 91. — Hypericum Buckleyi. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Hypericum Buckleyi. 



THIS pretty and delicate Hypericum, of which a 

 figure appears on this page, is one of the rarest of 

 the North American species, it being known only on 

 a few of the higher mountains of the Carolinas and Geor- 

 gia, where it was first noticed many years ago by the bot- 

 anist whose name it bears. It is a wide-branched plant 

 with slender stems from eight to twelve inches long and 

 covered with loose reddish bark. The leaves are oblong- 

 obovate, from a half to two and a half inches long, 

 rounded at the apex, gradually narrowed at the base, 

 bright green on the upper surface and pale on the lower. 

 The flowers, which are solitary and terminal, are borne on 

 long slender bracteate pedicels ; they are an inch across, 

 with obovate sepals, bright yellow striated strap-shaped 

 petals more or less rounded or acuminate at the apex, 

 united styles and three-celled ovaries. 



Hypericum Buckleyi was sent to the Arnold Arboretum 

 in November, 1889, by Mr. F. H. Boynton, of Highlands, 

 North Carolina, and flowered profusely here this year in 

 the open ground at the end of June. Nearly all the Amer- 

 ican Hypericums are desirable garden-plants ; most of the 

 species are very hardy, their habit is good, and they us- 

 ually produce their showy flowers at midsummer. Hy- 

 pericum Buckleyi promises to be a good addition to a not 

 very long list of small, handsome-flowered, and easily 

 grown hardy shrubs, suitable for small rockeries or the 

 margins of small shrubberies. 



Our illustration is taken from a drawing made by Mr. 

 Faxon from a cultivated plant. 



C. S. S. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



Bordeaux Mixture for Potatoes. — 

 A fortnight ago I sent you some 

 particulars of a trial of this mixture 

 as a preventive to disease in Pota- 

 toes by Messrs. Sutton & Sons, of 

 Reading, the result of which was 

 most ' unfavorable to the mixture. 

 Dr. C. B. Plowright, the eminent 

 fungologist, now reports a trial of 

 Bordeaux mixture on Potatoes which 

 shows an immense gain in the yield 

 of the dressed Potatoes as compared 

 with those which were not dressed. 

 The experiment was made in Don- 

 aghmore, Tyrone, only Champion 

 Potatoes being tried. They were 

 grown upon two different farms, the 

 treated and untreated plants grew 

 side by side, and were identical as 

 to seed, manure, cultivation, etc. 

 The mixture used w r as 32 lbs. cop- 

 per sulphate, 16 lbs. lime, and 160 

 galls, water. It was applied by an 

 Eclair Knapsack pump, price thirty- 

 five shillings ; the cost, including la- 

 bor, being about ten shillings per 

 acre. The leaves of the untreated 

 plots were destroyed by August 

 21st, but the foliage of the dressed 

 plots was quite green for nearly a 

 month longer. The total yield from 

 the plots treated with the mixture 

 was 78 tons 14 cwts., while from a 

 similar number of plots which were 

 jnot treated the yield was 66 tons 13 

 (cwts. The difference per acre was 

 between one and a half and two tons in favor of the treated 

 plots. This experiment certainly proves that in this particular 

 case the application of the fungicide to plots of Champion 

 Potato made a considerable improvement in the yield. 

 But there are good reasons for believing that, under other 

 conditions of climate and soil, the same Potato would have 

 behaved quite differently, and, possibly, would even have 

 proved better without the mixture. Further experiment is 

 necessary before any definite opinion as to the value of 

 the mixture as a fungicide for Potatoes can be reached. 



[Experiments carried on for some years in this country 

 seem to show that spraying Potato-plants with the Bor- 

 deaux mixture hinders the spread of the rot by preventing 

 the germination of spores which are carried by the wind 

 from infected to healthy plants. — Ed.] 



Cypripedium insigne, var. Sanders. — According to a para- 

 graph in The Times a plant of this Cypripedium has lately 

 been purchased by Messrs. F. Sander & Co. for ^250. The 

 history of this variety is as follows : It was introduced by 

 the St. Albans nurserymen in 1888 among a batch of C. 



