284 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
Rhododendron Environments. 
I fully expected if Mr. Jensen wrote, that he would bring 
out plain and interesting facts, and he has. For instance he 
tells us that R. nudiflorum was found in “low forest” lands at 
Calumet Lake up to a few years ago; a fact which I, and scores 
of others no doubt have overlooked. Many botanies copying 
after each other in a matter where independent observation is 
of far more value than in nomenclature, mention the species 
as growing in “swamps” without a word of the woodland at 
all. 
Now I have fancied the Azalea section has a tendency to 
Fro7n E. J. Wallis' Illustrations of Kiw. 
THE rhododendron W.VLK, KEW' GARDENS, ENGEAND. 
seek more and more moist ground as it extends northward, and 
if the hypothesis can be sustained it has an important bearing 
on practice. At the south and through Virginia and Maryland 
to Central New Jersey, the species has seemed to me more 
common in dry woodland than wet, but rarely or never in the 
fields or the fence rows exposed to “siroccos.” 
But from Central Jersey northward it becomes common in 
moist or even boggy woodland. R. viscosa, and R. Rhodora 
too are found in boggy, more open, ground in company with 
Clethras and the like, but less overgrown with trees and often 
quite wet in summer. 
I have fancied the partiality for wetter ground at the north 
extends to R. maximum also, but I know that no rule can be 
formulated which depends upon the observation of any one 
man. The area to be covered is too wide. I have noticed when 
passing over the southern Alleghanies to the Ohio valley that 
maximum grows on dry hill sides, while in the Delaware 
valley it hugs the streams and the slopes are more moist, and 
in Morris Co., N. J., and northward I have been credibly in- 
formed that it grows in bogs. 
If these conditions could be generalized it would be re- 
markable and show a rare adaptability. Many facts could be 
given as to the high dry exposed ground many .species occupy 
within and near the tropics, where the warm air has a greater 
capacity for moisture. It is a well recognized fact I think, 
although scarcely a formulated one, that Ericales generally 
dislike “siroccos,” and the species subject to such influences 
are commonly wiry, narrow-leaved affairs, and maritime at 
that. But on the prairies as Mr. Jensen points out, plants are 
alternately swept by desert air in summer, which often shows 
from 85 degrees to too degrees Fah. or more, with the moisture 
sucked out of it; and in the winter by blizzardly north-westers 
at 10 to 20 degrees Fah. below zero, with all the moisture 
frozen solid. I am very glad I did not urge an} body to plant 
Ericales on the prairies. 
We have “sirocco” snaps at the East too, especially during 
June, which often passes with scarcely a shower. I only 
remember one wet June in 25 years. The influence of the 
great deserts is re- 
markable and I have 
never been able to 
understand how they 
happened to belt 
around the tropics of 
Cancer and Capricorn 
anyhow. 
It is a fact all too 
little measured and 
known, that a few de- 
grees more or less of 
dryness in the air 
means the difference 
between health and 
disease, or life and 
death to a multitude 
of p’ants : Heaths, 
Conifers, Orchids, 
Ferns if too little, and 
succulents generally 
if too much, especially 
at the wrong time. 
Yet we find people 
cheerfully sending 
plants and seeds all 
over the country with- 
out the remotest idea 
of their climato logical 
requirements, while Natures prescience is absolute and cer- 
tain. Thus we had “multicantes” but no silk, oranges 
growing from one winter to the next, or the next, sugar de- 
pendent on Dingleyiun, and such an infinity of fruits and 
flowers =ent where they never should be, that nothing but the 
most cheerful kind of American Mark Tapleyism, permits 
certain men to live and move and have their being. 
And the Arboreteum men and Experimental men, where 
are they with their facts? I can rarely find an} thing new 
even in a state library. Do they just exist to collate others 
experience, mail it to a few, and twist it out of alt semblance 
of sanity, like tea culture, and crude petroleum? 
I enclose you this, a view of a portion of the Rhododendron 
walk at Kew, the construction of which I think I have heard 
was begun by George III. setting the Middlesex Militia to 
work upon it, and so converting tluir swoids i to pruning 
hooks. It will be noticed what a small figure the “walk” cuts, 
although walks are necessary in their damp climate. 
I hope we may often and often have such suggestive 
correspondence as that from Mr. Jensen. 
Trenton, N. J. 'James MaePherson, 
