514 



GARDENS, BOOKS AND NATURE. 



basin, N. Y., contributes the following note for 

 this occasion upon the systematic position of the 

 long- spurred thorn : 



" General opinion concerning this thorn has asso- 

 ciated it with the C. cocciiiea type, rather than with 

 the C. touicnfosa type of thorns ; and no doubt its 

 position is intermediate, connecting the two. After 

 an examination, however, of a considerable series 

 of specimens from Pennsylvania, New York, New 

 England, and Quebec, one is brought to the con- 

 clusion that its affinities are with the pear thorn 

 rather than with the scarlet thorn. 



"With one exception, the pear thorn (C tomen- 

 tosa) is well characterised in the sixth edition of 

 Gray's Manual. Instead of 'glands none,' the de- 

 scription should read, ' calyx lobes pectinately 

 serrate and glandular,' as Torrey and Gray wrote it 

 in the 'Flora of North America,' p. 465. 



"Taking representative specimens of the pear 

 thorn and the long-spurred thorn (our var. macra- 

 canthd), they are found to agree very nearly in the 

 general outline and size of the leaf, which is 

 almost invariably contracted into a shortish stout 

 petiole; in the lanceolate calyx lobes, abundantly 

 pectinate and glandular ; in the stiff, upright habit 

 of the cyme in fruit, and in the usually narrow 

 lanceolate stipules. The true C. c^ccinea has 

 leaves thin, abrupt or cordate at the base, on 

 slender petioles ; its triangular-lanceolate calyx 



lobes are remotely dentate-glandular as a rule, often 

 almost glandless ; the cyme is diffuse in fruit, and 

 the stipules usually broad. 



"The typical long-spurred thorn, with its thick, 

 shining, sharply serrate, wedge-shaped, nearly 

 smooth leaves ; very long spines ; reddish, rather 

 diffusely spreading branches ; its large globose 

 shining buds ; its rounded head ; dark, checked 

 bark (less scaly on the old trunks than in the 

 other two), and its small fruits, seems an extremely 

 characteristic plant ; but the fact that it varies 

 with larger fruits and more abrupt, smooth leaves 

 and shorter spines toward C. coccmea, with more 

 pubescent leaves and shorter spines toward C 

 tomentosa, has been the chief cause of its long ob- 

 scuration. 



"Probably we have here a specific type, accom- 

 panied by the usual crataegi variations, as distinct 

 as in C. ptinciata, C. glandulosa, Willd., may be 

 its earliest name. But its present position need 

 not be disturbed until after further observations of 

 its variations, and until after old European herbari- 

 ums, where it no doubt exists, as it does in Euro- 

 pean gardens, are carefully examined." 



The long-spurred thorn occurs from the St. 

 Lawrence river and New England to Minnesota. 

 Its southward range is not determined. It should 

 be introduced to cultivation, as it is beautiful and 

 meritorious. — L. H. B. 



GARDENS, BOOKS AND NATURE. 



HEY who have spent the 

 summer in a garden, with 

 The American Garden as 

 "guide, philosopher, and 

 friend," have missed some 

 of the best things that grew 

 therein if they have gath- 

 ered only the visible pro- 

 ducts of the soil. The garden is a great teacher, 

 and all literature is replete with illustrations drawn 

 from it, and from that broader garden in which is 

 comprised all the larger effects of nature. 



To cite instances in proof of this would be to 

 give a bibliography of literature, to quote from 

 volume after volume, to cover the whole wide 

 range of poem and story and essay, for all utter- 

 ances which have been designed to instruct, or to 

 afford pleasure to the cultivated intellect, have 

 almost invariably been compelled to borrow illus- 

 trations from the domain of nature, and to seek 

 her aid to "point the moral and adorn the tale." 



The Prince among the teachers of men took for 

 his lesson the sowing of the seed, the reaping of 

 the harvest. A Virgil and a Bacon, the first of 

 poets and philosophers, have rendered homage to 

 nature and the garden. Artists must be in touch 

 with the great garden of all animate nature, if 

 they would move the sympathies of men. Millet, 

 the peasant-painter of France, felt this when he 

 said to Sensier : "Some tell me that I deny the 

 charms of the country. I find much more than 

 charms — I find infinite glories. I see, as well as ■ 

 they do, the little flowers of which Christ said that 

 ' Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one 

 of these.' I see the halves of dandelions, and the 

 sun also, which spreads out beyond the world its 

 glories in the clouds." 



Millet, like all true artists, had a sixth sense — 

 the sense of beauty. This was subject to and con- 

 trolled by the same impressions and forces that 

 make us cognizant, through the other senses, of 

 pain or pleasure. He felt, and could interpret to 



