322 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
January 23. 
Silver Spangled is spotted, or marked, similar to tlie liens. 
—James Deon, Bradford .” 
[Few persons, probably, are better qualified to pass their 
criticisms on the “Hamburgh” classes than Mr. Dixon. 
We regret, therefore, to find ourselves at variance with him 
on the point of the hen-tailed spangled cocks at Birmingham. 
But the statement to which he refers, viz., that “ no lien- 
tailed bird in those classes received either prize or com¬ 
mendation;” and his rejoinder, that “many prize pens had 
this feature,” are only to be reconciled on the supposition 
that a widely different estimate of what departure from the 
the sickle form would be held to constitute the hen or 
square-tail, is taken by himself and the writer of the article 
in question. The requirement of dark hackle in the 
spangled birds, might, certainly, have been limited to the 
silver variety, as no one, we imagine, would contest the 
point of a light hackle for the golden cocks.] 
Historical Notes on the Introduction of various 
Plants into the Agriculture and Horticulture of 
Tuscany : a summary of a work entitled Cenni storici 
sulla intraduzione di varie piaatc nell'agrieultura ed orti- 
cultura Toscana. By Dr. Antonio Targioni - Tozetti. 
Florence, 1850. — ( From the Horticultural Society's 
Journal .) 
(Concluded from page 309.') 
The two last chapters of Prof. Targioni’s work are 
devoted to ornamental trees, shrubs, and herbs of exotic 
origin, which have, at various times, been introduced into 
Italy, and are now become more or less common in Tuscany. 
The list comprises nearly one hundred, but among them 
there are many which have only been carried there from 
English gardens in the latter half of the eighteenth century, 
whose history is of little interest, or maybe found in any 
of our Garden Catalogues, and which are therefore here 
omitted. It will be sufficient for our present purposes to 
extract some notes relative to the more important, especially 
to those which have been so long cultivated in Italy as to 
have become almost naturalised. 
Among them one of the earliest known is the Oriental 
Planctree (Platanus orientalis), a native of Western Asia, 
highly prized by the Romans, as we learn from Pliny, for 
its grateful shade, and celebrated by their most distinguished 
poets and orators. The same naturalist informs us that it 
was brought from Asia across the Ionian sea to plant 
round the sepulchre of Diomedes, in the island named after 
him, now l’alagosa, one of tho Tremiti isles off the Adriatic 
coast of the kingdom of Naples. Plane-trees were subse¬ 
quently imported into Sicily, and from thence by Dionysius 
the First to a garden of his at Reggio in Calabria, whence 
they spread over the rest of Italy. They were, according to 
Pliny, brought to tlie neighbourhood of Rome by a freedman 
of Marcellus Exerminus in the time of the Emperor 
Claudius, and have ever since been extensively planted in 
Italy, where they attain a great age and size* It is there¬ 
fore a matter of no small surprise that so many ages should 
have elapsed before this tree found its way into other 
European states. It was not known in France until Buffon 
planted it in the Jardin du Roi in the middle of the 
eighteenth century; but Clusius had already carried it to 
Vienna as early as 1570, and in England it bad been 
imported somewhat earlier still by Sir Nicholas Bacon, 
father of the Chancellor, who planted it in his garden at 
Verulam in 1548. 
The American Plane (Platanus occidentalis), now become 
very common in Italy, and generally preferred to the 
Oriental, was only introduced there long after Tradescant had 
brought it to England from Virginia about the year 1040. 
Another tree, no less celebrated for the beauty of its 
shade, so valuable a quality in Italian climates, is the 
Diospyros lotus, like the plane-tree a native of Asia Minor, 
but of very early introduction into Italy. It was confounded 
* A plane-tree is mentioned as still existing at Arcoli in 1313, which, 
from authentic records, was then at least live centuries old. 
by ancient Greek and Roman writers with the Zizyphus 
lotus, or with the Celtis australis, under the name of tree 
lotus. But these lofty and ancient trees recorded by Pliny, 
one on the square of the temple of Lucian, another near 
the temple of Vulcan, and some others near the house of 
Lucius Crassus, as celebrated for their spreading branches 
and thick shade, could have been no other than the 
Diospyros lotus, and not tho Celtis as supposed by some 
commentators. For having been for ages extensively 
planted in Italy, and from its readiness to sow itself there, 
the Diospyros has now become naturalised in some localities 
in such abundance as to to induce its insertion in several 
local floras as indigenous. The American Persimmon 
(Diospyros virginiana) with larger fruits, now also to be 
met with in Italy, was only introduced there from England 
about the year 1793. 
Professor Targioni’s notes on the history and geography 
of the Cedar of Lebanon (l’inus cedrus) are now superseded 
by the discussions which have of late occupied some of our 
most distinguished botanists and horticulturists, and which 
it would be out of place to enter into on the present 
occasion. IVe will merely mention as a curious fact, that a 
tree, said to have been known to the ancients as of great 
value, and growing in parts of Western Asia and North 
Africa, with which the Romans had much intercourse, 
should never have been planted in Italy till it was earned 
from England to the Botanic garden at Pisa in the year 
1787; that is, above a century after Miller had introduced 
it into the Apothecaries’ Garden at Chelsea, and fifty-three 
years after Bernard de Jussieu deposited one with so much 
ceremony in the Jardin du Roi at Paris. The original Pisa 
tree is now in great beauty, and the species is becoming very 
generally planted in Tuscany. 
The Cypruss (Cupressus sempervirens), generally ad¬ 
mitted to be a native of Crete, Syria, and Asia Minor, lias for 
ages been common in Tuscany, where it attains great size 
and beauty, although individuals of extraordinary dimensions 
were more frequent in past times in the avenues of seignorial 
villas than they are at present. The wood was much 
celebrated by the ancients for its durability. Pliny, as well 
as modem writers, quotes several instances of its remaining 
sound for centuries. We learn from Thucydides that this 
incorruptibility caused it to be used by the Anthenians for 
the coffins of distinguished personages, and that the tree 
was then already considered as an emblem of sorrow and 
death, whence the ancient custom of planting it in burial- 
grounds. Recognised as exotic by Plinv, it had, however, 
already been introduced into Italy before the time of Cato, 
who was born in the year 232 b.c. The two remarkable 
varieties now known, with upright and with spreading 
branches, were equally distinguished by Pliny. 
The Horse Chesnut (.Esculus hippocastanum), a native of 
the mountains of Central Asia, was unknown to the ancients. 
It was first introduced into Constantinople in 1540, whence 
Qualcebeno, physician to the German Embassy, sent a 
branch with leaves and fruit to Mattliioli in 1557, and it 
was probably raised at Florence at about that time, for in 
1569 Jean Bauliin saw a tree of it about the size of a 
mulberry in the garden of the Grand Duke Cosmo I. Clusius 
planted one at Vienna in 1576, and Bacbelier introduced it 
into France from Constantinople in 1615. Two from the 
same source were planted soon after 1596 at the entrance of 
the botanic garden at Pisa and attained an immense size. 
One was destroyed in a storm in 1806, tho other still 
remains. 
The Cherry Laurel, or common Laurel of our gardens 
(l’runus laurocearsus), a native of the Asiatic coast of the 
Black Sea, is frequent in Italian gardens of comparatively 
mild climate, for, like many evergreens, it seems more 
impatient of severe frost there than with us. Unknown to 
the ancients, it was first brought from Trebizonde to 
Constantinople about the year 1540, and thence sent by the 
Austrian Ambassador, David Ugnard, to Clusius at Vienna in 
the year 1576. From the individuals there raised, it has 
since spread over the rest of Europe. In Tuscany it was 
within a very few years of that time procured by Cesalpiu, 
then Professor at Pisa, from the garden of Genoa. 
This cherry Laurel must not bo confounded with the real 
classical laurel, our bay-tree (Laurus nobilis), which is 
indigenous to Italy and other parts of Southern Europe. 
