28 



THE AMERICAN GARDEN. 



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A DESIRABLE VARIEGATED PLANT. 



(Ligustrum Japonicum.) 



One of the most satisfactory variegated 

 plants that I have ever grown is the Japan 

 Privet. It has the merit — which most varie- 

 gated plants do not have — of being reliable 

 and easily grown. Variegation, we are told, 

 is a disease, and most plants we try to grow 

 for the beauty which this disease gives them, 

 — this hectic which ought to make us sorry 

 for them, I suppose, — are so far gone that 

 it is a constant fight with nature to keep vi- 

 tality enough in them to make them worth 

 keeping at all. I think any one who has at- 

 tempted to grow the Geraniums having pale 

 and white-edged leaves will understand 

 precisely what I mean. Under some circum- 

 stances they may be grown successfully ; but 

 in the window, no sooner is a leaf developed 

 than it fades, and the consequence is, all the 

 foliage we have to show for our labor and 

 anxiety consists of two or three leaves on the 

 end of a naked stalk. With plants having a 

 variegation of yellow and red it seems dif- 

 ferent. These colors may be symptomatic of 

 the first stages of disease, but white mark- 

 ings seem to indicate a development of in- 

 herent weakness to a dangerous extent, and 

 stimulants have to be resorted to to keep up 

 a show of life, which is liable to collapse at 

 any time. 



The Japan Privet is the only plant I have 

 ever had with white variegation that has 

 grown well without much stimulation, and 

 retained its white leaves. One peculiar 

 charm of the plant consists in its eccentric- 

 ity Sometimes an entire branch will have 

 white leaves. Sometimes all the leaves on a 

 branch will be green. Then a branch will 

 put forth leaves striped and splashed with 

 white and pale creamy yellow, as if unde- 

 cided about what to do, and concluding to 

 try to please both branches of its family by 

 combining their characteristics. The mixt- 

 ure of green branches and white ones gives 

 the plant a most graceful and charming ap- 

 pearance. The habit of its growth is much 

 more graceful than that of most plants grown 

 for their foliage, as it puts out a good number 

 of branches of a slender, spreadinghabit, thus 

 forming a plant well adapted for grouping 

 with flowering plants which have nothing to 

 speak of in the way of leaves. Set in the 

 middle of a stand containing half a dozen 

 Geraniums, it will furnish foliage enough for 

 them all if they will supply flowers, and it is 

 very effective when so used, as its bright 

 green and pure white and creamy white 

 leaves harmonize well with scarlet or rose 

 color. 



The green branches grow much faster and 

 more robustly than the white ones do, and it 

 is often necessary to remove some of them 

 altogether, or cut them back severely. It 

 seems to show a constant effort to revert to 

 its normal condition, as if nature was mak- 

 ing great exertion to throw off the disease. 

 But my plant has never disappointed me as 

 my white-leaved Geraniums have. It has 

 always retained its variegated and white 

 leaves tenaciously, and the branches have 

 never become naked, as has always been the 

 ease among my Geraniums. I keep my plant 

 trimmed back among its green branches 



enough to make about an even thing of it 

 between green and white. In order to 

 secure the best results, it is necessary to keep 

 the plant growing. I do not give a soil rich 

 enough to encourage a rank growth- — rather a 

 steady and more healthy one. I use ordinary 

 potting soil, such as I give Geraniums. I do 

 not give my plant much direct sunshine, as 

 I think its white variegation comes out best 

 when it is kept back a little from the glass. 

 Grown in a full light, the white becomes 

 a pale yellow, which is not as beautiful. I 

 have a plant three years old, which has 

 reached a height of three feet and spreads 

 out on all sides enough to fill a circle of three 

 feet in diameter. Used with other plants, 

 or alone, it is very beautiful, and always 

 attracts a great deal of attention. I seldom 

 see it in collections. I wonder why it is not 

 more generally grown ? It is not a new 

 plant, and it seems to me its merits ought to 

 have attracted the attention of flower-growers 

 more than they have, so far as my experience 

 goes. I rank it among the best of variegated 

 plants for the lawn as well as the house. 



Eben E. Kexford. 



THE DOGWOOD. 



Few of our native flowering shrubs are so 

 generally admired as the Dogwood, probably 

 because it is one of the first to bloom in 

 early spring, and brightens the otherwise 

 somewhat dreary landscape. Like most of 

 our beautiful indigenous plants, it is seldom 

 seen in cultivation ; not that it lacks merit, 

 but because it grows wild. 



There are several fine species which are 

 extremely showy and easily cultivated, re- 

 quiring only the customary attention be- 

 stowed upon other shrubs. 



Cornus fiorida, the large flowering Dog- 

 wood, is the first to bloom, being covered by 

 a mass of large white flowers, which appear 

 before the leaves. The blossoms are two or 

 more inches in diameter, and so profusely 

 produced that the tree appears as if covered 

 by a white mantle. This species attains a 

 height of twenty-five feet, and makes a 

 shapely little tree. 



Cornus alter nifolia is not quite as tall as 

 the former, and can be trained either as a 

 tree or a shrub. It blooms a little later than 

 the preceding, and produces its flowers in 

 open clusters. 



Cornus paniculata is, strictly speaking, a 

 shrub, growing from three to eight feet high, 

 and branching profusely. The flowers are 

 pure white, and produced in large quantities, 

 appearing early in June, about the time 

 when the early flowering species are done 

 blooming. 



Like most native plants, they may be 

 readily transplanted and improved by culti- 

 vation. Young plants only should be selected 

 from situations where they may be easily re- 

 moved without injury to the roots. Care in 

 digging them is necessary, as the wild stock 

 seldom has an abundant quantity of fibrous 

 roots near the stem, and upon these the life 

 of the shrub depends. 



. Transplanting may be accomplished either 

 in the fall or early spring, If feasible, it is 

 a good plan to dig the trees in the fall, keep 

 them heeled in during winter, and plant as 

 early in spring as the ground can be worked. 

 The young wood should be cut back severely, 

 and the older branches trimmed to the de- 

 sired shape. Ike Ivy. 



AND GREENHOUSE. 



A WATER-PLANT FOR THE WINDOW. 



At the recent meeting of the New Jersey 

 Horticultural Society at Freehold, Professor 

 Samuel Lockwood, the naturalist, exhibited 

 a bit of window-gardening, the novelty and 

 effect of which attracted much attention. 

 It was simply a glass jar, containing water, 

 in which was a specimen of Hornwort, 

 Ceratophylhtm. demersum. The plant had an 

 extremely graceful appearance, looking like 

 exquisite plumes. The professor said the 

 plant had been in the jar four years, and 

 during that time he had cleaned the jar 

 only three times. A slight film of conferva 

 having grown on the sides, of course he 

 never changed the water — simply added 

 some for evaporation. He kept it in a sunny 

 place in the window for two reasons: the 

 plant liked the sun, and its appearance there 

 was the most beautiful. If the green scum 

 did appear, he put it in the shade for two or 

 three days, and that cured it. 



The Hornwort is a common water-plant, 

 growing in slow streams and ponds, and may 

 be procured at any time in summer. The 

 specimen shown was found near Trenton. 



The professor illustrated the phenomena 

 of size in vegetable growth in the tropics, 

 and the temperate zone, by a pretty device. 

 He spoke of the white Water Lily, our sum- 

 mer favorite, and of its great yet beautiful 

 sister, the Victoria regia. He said he saw 

 it in flower at Kew Gardens, England, and 

 mentioned the fact that, at its first bloom- 

 ing in England, at Chatsworth, under the 

 culture of Sir John Paxton, the great horti- 

 culturist, Sir John's little daughter was put 

 on a leaf, as if it were a boat. Each leaf is 

 six feet in diameter, and can sustain a con- 

 siderable weight. 



Then, showing two small glass vessels, 

 the professor said: "Here are two species 

 of floating water-plants showing as great 

 difference in size as the two Water Lilies 

 mentioned. This is the common Duck-weed, 

 Lemna minor, of our ponds. It is probably 

 the smallest flowering plant known. The 

 width of a leaf is about one-sixteenth of an 

 inch, and the width of the plant, with its 

 three leaves expanded on the water, is about 

 one-eighth of an inch. The flower is so 

 diminutive that few botanists have seen it. 

 Now, here in this jar is another floating 

 water-plant. It is from tropical Central 

 America. Its habits are identical. It floats 

 on the water, its white roots hanging un- 

 derneath, in just the same way as does the 

 Lemna. Albeit its name, Triance Bogotensis, 

 it might be taken for one of our Duck-weeds. 

 But notice the difference in size. A mature 

 leaf is five-eighths of an inch across, and the 

 plant is an inch and five-eighths in diameter. 

 Its frond then, is ten times larger than the 

 frond of our little Duck-weed, and the plant 

 is eighteen times larger than the plant of 

 Lemna minor. The average leaf of our Water 

 Lily, Nymphwa odorata, is about four and a 

 half inches in diameter ; while the diameter 

 of the leaf of Victoria regia is six feet — that 

 is, exactly sixteen times larger. So that we 

 have, in this matter of size, an exact coun- 

 terpart of these lowly plants and these mag- 

 nificent Lilies." 



