PARK AND CEMETERY 
6 3 
HORTICULTURAL NOTES. 
• Prof. Samuel B. Green, Horticulturist of the 
University of Minnesota Agricultural Experiment 
Station, St. Anthony Park, Minn., sends us the fol- 
lowing interesting notes: 
Recently I made a present of quite a bunch of 
trees to Como Park, Minneapolis, which by the way 
is getting to be one of the prettiest parks in this 
country, and in talking with the foreman I learned 
that they had been unsuccessful in growing Tama- 
risks, but soon found that they had only the forms 
commonly known in our nurseries, none of which 
are adapted to this section. Such forms as T. Afri- 
cana and T. Chinensis grow pretty well for the first 
year when received in good condition, and after that 
time continue to grow less and less until finally they 
drop out altogether, and they are never satisfactory 
here, while the form known as T. Amurensis, while 
not perfectly hardy, yet is very satisfactory, and 
makes a strong growth each year. I have seen this 
Tamarisk growing thriftily, I think even better than 
it does here at St. Paul, at Brookings, S. D., on 
very dry land, where it forms a plant seven or eight 
feet high. It is so graceful and pretty, and so easy 
to grow withal that it seems to me it ought to be 
more generally used in park planting. The larger 
Caraganas often look very pretty at this season of 
the year when the leaves are just unfolding, and the 
yellow flowers begin to show. 
The form that we have here came to us in some 
of our Russian importations, and is proving very 
desirable. It makes a bushy or tree-like plant eight 
to twelve feet high in this section. 
I have found that the T. Amurensis is most eas- 
ily grown from cuttings of the hard wood set in the 
ground in autumn, and covered with earth during 
the winter, when it often makes a growth of four 
feet the first year. 
Rubus deliciosus is a Rocky Mountain raspberry 
that has leaves very much resembling those of the 
currant, and white flowers fully as large as those of 
Rosa blanda, which appear about two weeks ear- 
lier in the season. Planted in groups in sheltered 
locations they would make a very attractive spot 
on the lawn of a park or cemetery. I am much 
pleased with it since it seems perfectly hardy and at 
home here. 
THE PyEONIA. 
With us the Pseonia is now waning in glory and 
soon the clump will look ragged and mar the land- 
scape. Yet we read from the pen of one of our 
leading landscape architects, directions for planting 
a flower garden and find thepaeonia placed in large 
clumps by themselves, as though their beauty in 
May would offset their ragged, sunburnt leaves dur- 
ing the remainder of the season. May I suggest 
the planting of Desmodium in variety as a means 
of transforming these pmonia beds into a picture of 
beauty, instead of allowing them to remain a blot 
on the surroundings. 
I have planted Desmodium and Pieonias alter- 
nately, and as each die down to the ground in the 
fall and come up in the spring, they grow well to- 
gether. 
When the Pieonia is up and through blooming 
the Desmodium is ready to take its place, and hide 
the objectionable features of the former with a beau- 
tiful foliage that changes color with every passing 
breeze, like the waves on a body of water; the wind 
changes the light green foliage by turning the leaf, 
showing the underside a silvery green, and in large 
clumps of Desmodium it is a beautiful sight to watch 
the gentle zephyrs playing on the foliage, remind- 
ing one of the waves on the water. Then when the 
season is almost ended the once beautiful Paonia 
bed is transformed, and the delicate red, pink and 
white pea shaped blossoms of the Desmodium burst 
forth in all their glory. What would have been a 
blot in the landscape is once more an ornament. 
Sid. J. Hare. 
POISON IVY. 
Since no other poisonous plant is so widely dis- 
seminated or so universally dreaded, the wonder is 
that mistakes are so frequently made regarding its 
identity; for through fear of it our most harmless 
and beautiful vines are often shunned. 
It frequents fence rows, rocks and thickets, is I 
to 3 feet high, with ovate leaves, dark green and 
shining above, rather downy beneath, and variously 
notched, cut-lobed, or in one variety, Rhus radicans, 
entire, the latter is a woody vine, often ascending 
trees to a height of 40 or 50 feet by means of its 
thread-like rootlets. The small greenish flowers 
are in axillary panicles. 
It is perhaps most frequently confused with the 
Virginia Creeper, so popular for shading verandas. 
A simple rule to remember is, that the leaves of the 
harmless vine are grouped in fives, and the berries 
are dark blue; those of the poison one are in threes, 
and the berries are nearly white. 
While the leaves doubtless contain the most ac- 
tive toxic element, neither stems nor roots are free 
from it — even in mid-winter. Owing to the volatile 
nature of the poison, sensitive persons are often af- 
fected by merely passing on its leeward side. This 
quality also renders the destruction of the plant by 
burning dangerous. 
Those who have freely handled it many times 
without ill effects are liable at some time, — owing 
to difference in external or physical conditions, — to 
succumb to its venomous breath; and if once poi- 
soned, they are ever after easily affected. 
