40 
bright red lustrous fruits more brilliantly colored and handsomer than 
those of any other hardy red-fruited Viburnum with the exception of the 
European Viburnum Opulus and the American V. americanum, the 
so-called Highbush Cranberry, which were in bloom several weeks ago. 
A Dwarf Spruce. In the May 7th issue of The Gardeners" Chronicle 
of London there is a figure and description of a little conifer which is 
called Picea albertiana, although some doubt is thrown on the accuracy 
of the name. Picea albertiana is a form of the White Spruce found only 
in the Gaspe Peninsula of eastern -Canada and in the valleys of the Black 
Hills of South Dakota and of the Rocky Mountains of northern Wyoming, 
Montana and northward, and chiefly distinguished from the common 
White Spruce of the east by its shorter and broader cones. As this tree 
grows or grew a few years ago on the borders of streams and lakes or 
in groves surrounding mountain meadows in northern Montana, it is one 
of the splendid trees of the continent, rising to the height of one hun- 
dred and fifty feet with a trunk from three to four feet in diameter and 
a narrow pyramidal head of slightly pendulous branches. A plant of a 
dwarf variety of this Spruce a few inches high was found by Professor 
Jack near Laggan, in Alberta, in 1904, and from this plant has been 
raised all the specimens in cultivation. They are all conic in shape and 
very compact, and the largest of them, in Massachusetts at least, are 
not much more than two feet high. Picea glauca is now the recognized 
name of the White Spruce and this dwarf, the plant figured in The 
Gardeners’ Chronicle, has been named Picea glauca var. albertina 
conica. It is certainly one of the rhost distinct of dwarf Spruces, and 
as it can be easily and quickly propagated from cuttings there is no 
reason why it should not be within the reach of every one interested 
in rock gardens for which it is well suited. 
A handsome climbing plant. Mr. H. H. Richardson exhibited on 
June 4th, before the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, a flower-cov- 
ered branch of the Southern Cross Vine which has been growing for 
several years in the open in his garden in Brookline. It is claimed that 
the Cross Vine has flowered in a Rhode Island garden but its beautiful 
red and yellow, tubular, two-lipped flowers have not been seen in Massa- 
chusetts outside of Mr. Richardson’s Brookline garden where several 
plants are clinging to the trunks of trees and are now fully twenty feet 
high. This vine climbs by the aid of tendrils by which it attaches itself 
to the rough bark of trees, but as the tendrils are not furnished with 
such adhesive disks as occur on some forms of the Virginia Creeper the 
vine is unable to attach itself to a wall. The adopted name for this 
plant is now Anisostichus capreolata; it has been more often called Big- 
nonia capreolata. It grows in rich soil and is common southward from 
southern Virginia and southern Illinois to Florida and Louisiana, often 
climbing into the tops of the tallest trees which it enlivens in very early 
spring with its abundant and showy flowers. The common name of 
this plant is due to the cross which can be seen in a transverse section 
of the stem. The Cross Vine, although it may not flower for every 
one, is one of the interesting additions which have been made recently 
to the garden flora of Massachusetts. 
