428 



THE GARDENERS' MAGAZINE. 



June 8, 1912. 



drooping crimson bells are borne upon dark 

 reddish stems. 



There is a good hybrid (S. Hausmanni) 

 derived from a cross between S. aizoides 

 and S. mutata. It retains something of 

 the silvered leafage of mutata, and carries 

 rioh yellow flowers. A place should be 

 found for this interesting saxifrage, where 

 it can have plenty of moisture. S. Hosti, 

 with its masses of elegant rosettes, and its 

 graceful clouds of white blossoms, tipped 

 with purple, and its pleasing variety altis- 

 sima with its recurving foliage, are both 

 worthy of note, 



P. S. Hatward. 



SOME GOOD HERON'S BILLS. 



Many pretty and valuable rock garden or 

 border plants are comprised in the Ero- 

 diums, or Heron's Bills, and the attention 

 of the lovers of hardy flowers is called to 

 the beauty and servioeableness of some cf 

 these charming subjects, most of which have 

 graceful foliage and distinctly pretty 

 blooms. Their number is too great for full 

 consideration ; but among those here men- 

 tioned there will be found a sufficient num- 

 ber of good plants to serve for most gar- 

 dens, however large. 



These Erodiums are invaluable for the 

 rockery and rock garden, the smaller species 

 being excellent for the small rockery, and 

 also for the choice border, while the bigger 

 ones are good border flowers^ and also look 

 remarkably well when planted in the large 

 rock garden in places where they will not 

 make their smaller neighbours look insigni- 

 ficant. They generally like sun but can do 

 with a moderate amount of shade. A dryish 

 scjil is what they prefer. 



For the border the best are the larger 

 oneSj such as Erodium chelidonifolium, 

 with rosy-purple flow^ers with crimson 

 stripes and pretty foliage. It makes a nice 

 bush about a foot high, and is a capital bor- 

 der plant in a dry soil. Even finer for the 

 border is E. Manescavi, which affords us a 

 long succession of good, large, rosy-purple 

 flowers on a bush of neatly-divided foliage. 

 It, also, likes a dry border, and there it wUl 

 give its bright flowers for a long season. 



Fbr the front ^f the border or the 

 rockery, most of these are lovely and valu- 

 able little flowers, and among them we 

 have none nicer than E. guttatum^ which 

 has white blooms with a deep, almost blacky 

 blot<?h at the base of each petal. The 

 contrast is very fine. The leaves are very 

 pretty, and the whole plant is only about 

 four inches high. E. hymenodes is not quite 

 SI hardy, and has pale purple flowers with 

 a dark blotch, on a plant about nine inches 

 high. It likes a dry and sunny place on 



the rock work. 



In E . Reichar di . also 



called chamsedryoides, we find a little plant 

 rising only an inch or two above the soil, 

 and affording us lovely small white flowers 

 on a plant with heart-shaped leaves, the 

 little blooms being adorned with pink vein- 

 ing. I find that this sometimes dies out in 

 northern gardens, so that it is prudent to 

 keep a plant or two in a frame in winter to 

 replace any w^hich may be lost in cold 



winters. 



The charming little E. Sibthorpianum, 

 which has white and crimson-purple flowers 

 on a plant with exquisitely cut foliage, is 

 one of the prettiest. It is only about six 

 inches high, and its habit and general 

 beauty necessitate its inclusion among the 

 Ijest of the smaller Heron's Bills. 



These flowers can be purchased and 

 planted in spring, and some of them may 

 be ra'sed from seeds, sown at the same 

 time, and the seeds treated as with other 

 smaller hardy flowers. 



S. Arnott. 



TRIFLES ABOUT TREES. 



There are two proverbs which describe 

 the life of trees. One says, " Acorns make 

 forests," the other declares, ''If no leaf 

 dropped no branch would shoot." When 

 spring has come how joyously w^e read hope 

 in the bxidding out of the tender green 

 foliage, but how seldom do we realise that 

 the preliminary growth is taking place in 

 that ''sad autumntide" which we call a 

 melancholy season, since not a russet tint 

 but has its usefulness. 



Trees minister to our daily wants by 

 their wood in hundreds of ways not gene- 

 rally reckoned or but vaguely understood. 

 For example, when we look upon the com- 

 mon willow how seldom do we remember 

 that it will come in time to be sawn and 

 fashioned into small boats, used to line 

 stone-carrying carts, and the smaller pieces 

 made, probably, into pails, flour tubs, 

 bread plattens, soap dishes, spoons, cabinet 

 rails, bowls, and clothes pegs! The virtue 

 of the wood is its non-liability to be split 

 by any sudden shock. Years ago it used 

 to be so finely sliced that chip hats were 

 made of the younger branches. An old 

 writer savs that wnllows grow always in 

 wet, marshy districts, where fevers abound, 

 because the bark, when shredded into boil- 

 ing water and allowed to stand until cool, 

 provides a tonic drink of medicinal value 

 approaching that of quinine, and the poorer 

 folk could thus obtain at once a potent 

 remedy. Probably the maladies lingering 

 in low lands are alluded to in the lines, 



Live near the willow, you'll not live long ; 

 Its roots ne'er flourish without some wrong." 



To live beside an elder tree, on the con- 

 trary, is to have a fair skin and a cheer- 

 ful hearth," but the tree must have sprung 

 up from seed, not been transplanted from 

 elsewhere. Few people seem aware now 

 that a delicious cooling face wash can be 

 made by soaking the blossoms twenty-four 

 hours in water that is kept gently boiling. 

 Each berry contains three seeds, which 

 gained the tree the name of Trinity bush. 



Acorn bread was a general article of food 

 among our distant ancestors, those men of 

 whom a poet wrote, 



**Fed with the oaken mast, 

 The aged trees themselves in age surpassed.'' 



Now we forget this Uvsefnlness of our 

 native monarch of the woods, although the 

 w^ord acorn is merely the Saxon version of 

 "corn of the oak." The great diarist, 

 Evelyn, states, too, that a pig will in- 

 crease a pound a day in weight if fed every 

 morn with a peck of acorns in a 

 lijttle bran. It is amusing to note the 

 widespread employment of the word oak 

 in naming towns and villages, for the an- 

 cient Oc " was corrupted in innumerable 

 fashions, giving us the Sussex T'ckfield, say 

 some authoritites, Okehampton and Ockley, 

 as well as the more easily recognised Acton, 

 Accrington, and Axminster. 



The wood of the oaks grows slowest of 

 all, but lasts longest, which gave rise 

 perhaps to the common saying, about any 

 blustering, restless person, Oh, he will 

 need an oak coffin." The poet Dryden was 

 not correct in his calculation, but the verse 

 in which he tried to state the career of a 

 tree of this species is not without interest. 



Tlio monarch oak, the patriarch of trees, 

 Shoote rising up, and spreads by slow 

 degrees. 



Three centuries he grows and three he stays, 

 Supreme in state, and in three more decays.'' 



There was an oak of over eight hundred 

 years of age at Morley, in Cheshire, ac- 

 cording to local traditions. To dream of 

 an oak in full foliage in winter is a sign of 

 the coming of a gift or legacy, hut if the 

 branches should be bare then the omen 

 was a mournful one, predicting a fall from 

 fortune. In symbolic lore the oak means 

 hospitality, not strength or fame, as so 

 often declared, while the leaves alone sig- 

 nify bravery. The ancient Romans wished 

 to award a ehaplet of oak to Scipio Afri- 

 canus, for having risked his own life to 

 save that of his father in the battle of 

 Trcbia; the great warrior, however, re^ 

 fused to be thus honoured for a deed which 

 carried with it its own reward. 



A Norse theory is that man was made 

 out of the wood of the ash tree. The 

 Greeks possessed the same fancy, while in 

 olden Wales no churchyard was thought 

 complete without the " sacred " ash that is 

 a protection against all evil spirits. Spencer 

 alludes to 



The ash for nothing ill." 



Druidic circles in North Britain are 

 proved to have been generally drawn 

 aroimd a mountain ash tree, and the wood 

 provides handles for spades and axes, also 

 oars. 



Yews and cypresses have been classed 

 together as solemn graveyard trees, yet the 

 former were chiefly valued as giving stout 

 wood for the bows of yeomen, and it was 

 becoming rare, of costly price, when the 

 invention of firearms relieved the situation. 



DAHLIAS TO PERFBOTION.— A thopoug-h g^uide 

 to the eucoeeeful culture of thase popular flowere is 

 "Dahliac ajid. their CTi'ltivation," by J. B. Wroe, 

 price l6 net by post le. 2d. botind in cloth le. 6d., 

 by poet. Is. 8d.. from W. H. And L. Ct>Uingridge, 

 148, Alder«gat« Street. London. 



Ye wood, speeding death home imto three 



kingly hearts, 

 Re grown near tombs for aye." 



So a poet bids. The monarchs referred to 

 were the great Richard Coeur de Lion, 

 William Rufus, aud Harold. Cypresses 

 were cut up into the coffins for heroes of 

 Athens, as well as into the indestructible 

 chests in which Egyptian mummies were 

 always laid, and a plantation of this tree 

 was reckoned a rich portion for a Roman 

 daughter. Organ pipes used to be con- 

 structed of the wood, according to Evelyn, 

 also harps and other musical instruments. 



An old writer tells us that a favourite 

 liobby of a luxurious Roman was the col- 

 lecting of rarely-marked maple wood to 

 haA^e made into tables. For curious speci- 

 mens the sums given were quite marvellous, 

 and the wives of the connoisseurs had a 

 habit of pointing to these articles of fur- 

 niture when reproached with their lesser 

 extravagancies, whence arose the phrase, 



turning the tables." 



From sycamores sugar was formerly ex- 

 tracted by the Scotch. Limes supply 

 sounding-boards for pianos, panels for car- 

 riages, and other commodities that must 

 never warp, while the famous Grinlitig 

 Gibbons carved some of his finest work ni 

 St. PauVs Cathedral, Windsor Castle, and 

 Chatsworth in the wood. Clogs and 

 wooden soles for shoes come from the alder, 

 guns from the walnut, the bark of old 

 black poplar is so light that it will float 

 like oork, so is used for supports in fisher- 

 men's nets. Birch bark yields an oil used 

 in the preparation of 'Russia leather, an<l 

 is responsible for its distinctive odour. Tn<^ 

 wheels of water-mills are mostly of elm. 



Old sayings, of proverbial character, 

 dealing with our subject, are the following '• 

 ''No tree but has rotten wood enough to 

 burn it.'' " The topmost branch o' the tree 

 is safe but for those that can fly.'' ''Such 

 as the tree is, such the fruit." "An oak 

 is not felled with one blow." "Remove a 

 young tree and it'll soon bear, ^^^^^^^f.^^ 

 auld tree an' it's a'ready withered." 'Tis 

 fordish to send fir to Norway." _ 



M. H. 



