164 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

NOTES

Dr. John D. Dwyer, Associate Professor of Biology, St. Louis University,
has been appointed Research Associate at the Garden.

Recent out-of-town visitors to the Garden include Mr. Bertram H.
Chalfant, president of the Nashville, Tenn., Orchid Society; Dr. George
Thomas Johnson, of the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; Dr. Ralph O.
Erickson, of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Under the leadership of Mrs. George H. Pring, the Federated Women’s
Clubs of Missouri have taken over responsibility for serving as guides in
Mr. Shaw’s old country residence ‘“Tower Grove.” It is now open regularly
every week day and Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m.

On the evening of November 16 the Chrysanthemum Show served as a
background for an informal reception for the Horticultural Council, the
staff, and the Trustees of the Garden. It was a clear moonlit night.
The hanging baskets of chrysanthemums proved to be even more beautiful
by artificial light than by daylight. The fifty-seven people who attended
went home feeling as if they had been to a party in fairyland.

The children of the late Mrs. Edward Walsh are turning over to the
Garden virtually all of her horticultural library. It includes many large and
handsome volumes that the Garden would have liked to purchase when they
appeared, but which were beyond its modest budget for new books. Mrs.
Walsh was a gardener of distinction and a person of infinite taste. She had
a lively curiosity which included many of the byways of horticulture, and
was a frequent visitor to the Garden and its library. This gift of more than
one hundred volumes brings us not only valuable books that we badly needed,
but volumes we will also treasure just because they are from Mrs. Walsh’s
library. Outstanding among them are: Bailey’s “Standard Cyclopedia of
Horticulture,” 6 vols.; Butler’s ‘“Floralia—Garden Paths and By-Paths of
the 18th Century”; Byne and Stapley’s ““Majorcan Houses and Gardens”;
Coffin’s ‘Trees and Shrubs for Landscape Effect”; Conway and Hiatt’s
“Flowers: East-West’’; Crane’s “Flowers and Folk-Lore from Korea”; Fischer
and Harshbarger’s “The Flower Family Album”; Gothein’s ‘History of
Garden Art”; Gromort’s “L’Art des Jardins,” 2 vols.; Harlow’s “Trees of
the Eastern United States and Canada”; [Japanese Flower Arrangements],
9 vols.; Mrs. Leyel’s “Herbal Delights’; Meade’s “Bouquets and Bitters’;
Otten’s “Tuberous-rooted Begonias”; Parson and Cook’s “Gardens of Eng-
land”; Pean’s ‘Jardins de France,” 2 vols.; Mrs. Perrin’s “British Flowering
Plants,” 4 vols.; Stebbing’s “Colour in the Garden”; Tamura’s “Gardens of
Japan”; Tamura’s “Art of Landscape Gardening in Japan”; Tatsui’s ‘“Gar-
dens of Japan”; Wilder’s “Pleasures and Profits of a Rock Garden.”

VUISSOURI BO

GARD

ANICAL

HN BU

aL

a TIN

CONTENTS

Sixty-fourth Annual Report of the Director

Volume ALI

J anuary, 1953

Number 1

Cover: Central detail from the gate of Henry Shaw’s city residence. This gate now
opens on Tower Grove Avenue adjacent to the Administration Building at
the Garden.

Office of publication: 306 E. Simmons Street, Galesburg, I]linois.

Editorial Office: Missouri Botanical Garden, 2315 Tower Grove Avenue,
St. Louis, 10, Missouri.

Published monthly except July and August by the Board of Trustees of the
Missouri Botanical Garden. Subscription price: $2.50 a year.

Entered as second-class matter January 26, 1942, at the post-office at Gales-
burg, Illinois, under the Act of March 3, 1879.

Please: Do not discard a copy of the Bulletin. If you have no further use for yours
pass it along to a friend or return it to the Garden. Return postage will
be guaranteed.

Missouri Botanical
Garden Bulletin

Vol. XLI JANUARY, 1953 No. 1

SIXTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR

To THE BoaRD OF TRUSTEES:

The Director of the Garden has the honor to submit his report for the
year ending December 31, 1952.

The problem of having sufficient revenue to maintain the Garden and
its various activities as established by Henry Shaw, continues to be a matter
of concern to the Director and the Board of Trustees. The number of
employees is at an all-time low, possibly because of the fact that the wage
scale is below that of similar positions paid by the City of St. Louis. All the
returns are not in, but it seems as though, for the first time in its history,
the Garden would have a deficit at the end of 1952. Expenses have been cut
to the lowest possible point, and it is evident that some means of increasing
the income must be devised. Various methods are under consideration by
the Board, and a public announcement will be made as soon as a decision is
reached.

THE CITY GARDEN

Marin CONSERVATORIES AND Exotic RANGES.—

The succulent plant collection maintained in the two wings of the main
conservatory range received major attention during the yeam For two
seasons no large-scale pruning and thinning out in the South African House
have been carried out. As a consequence the Old World succulents such as
various aloes and stoloniferous sansevierias spread all over the place, and the
slender twining creeping stems of Ceropegia caffrorum covered everything
in the beds like dodder does in the open. Three full weeks were devoted to
cleaning, resetting, planting, indexing and labeling the plants. At least a
full truck load of material was hauled out after a few plants and cuttings
were selected for propagating purposes. At present about 45 kinds of
South African aloes are growing in the house, and some 50 kinds of
euphorbias which form the largest and tallest exhibits in the room. Among
the euphorbias are many rare species, mostly raised from seed about twenty
years ago. A 10-ft. Euphorbia abyssinica is probably the outstanding spurge,

(1)

2 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

its undulating ribs looking like writhing snakes extending from the tip to
base of the plant. In this house is also a bed of Aloe vera, the leaves of
which are used in alleviating X-ray and radium burns. The Garden has
been supplying these leaves to three St. Louis dermatologists—one of a long
list of services which our institution performs in the course of a year. In
addition to routine care and maintenance work, excess gravel was removed
from the walks.

In the Cactus House pruning was done on a smaller scale but several of
the xerophytic trees and shrubs were severely pruned back in September, in-
cluding Cnidoscolus oligandrus, Parkinsonia aculeata, Acacia Farnesiana,
Enterolobium cyclocarpum, Cochlospermum vitifolium, and Tecoma stans
var. angustatum, One night in the early part of June 176 flowers appeared
on the two trellised Night-blooming Cereus. This established a record since
the plants were set out in 1933, usually from 5 to 50 flowers a night appear-
ing during the blooming season. This year more than 500 flowers were
recorded for the blooming season of about four weeks. During the year a
few of the plants collected by Ladislaus Cutak on his 1947 Mexican expedi-
tion bloomed for the first time. One was a night-blooming Selenicereus
from Aguaje Guayabo in Oaxaca which appears to be closely allied to, if not
a form of, S. Nelsonii. Another was an Epiphyllum pumilum from a rain
forest in Chiapas, with fragrant white blossoms but differing in a few minor
characteristics from the type. Still another was a terrestrial bromeliad from
the Chivela-Nizanda district of Oaxaca which apparently is Hechtia Meziana,
one of the few species with a branched inflorescence. The rarest additions to
the cactus collection were two mature specimens of Melocactus oaxacensis
donated by Mr. Charles Redler of Los Angeles, California. Both of them
flowered and fruited during the year. The species is related to the bizarre
Turk’s Caps of Puerto Rico which have been featured on postage stamps.
Dr. Reino Alava, of Turku University, Finland, a former graduate student
at the Garden, dispatched 10 species of Rhipsalis as a nucleus towards a
collection of these epiphytic cacti. Willi Wagner, heir to Quinta Fer-
nando Schmoll, Mexico’s largest cactus establishment, presented 115 different
kinds of cactus plants in gratitude for identifying cacti for him. Dr. Nor-
man Boke, of the University of Oklahoma, sent photos and kodachromes of
several cacti which he wished identified for his histological work. Among
the lot were pictures of a curious cactus in a private collection in Coahuila
which could not be placed in any known genus in the Cactaceae. Steps were
initiated to secure specimens and two small ones were received in June. One
of them succumbed shortly after arrival, no doubt as a result of being weak-
ened by fumigation at the border. The other is being nursed along in the
hope that it will survive and be used for further study. This cactus is only

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 3

about the thickness of a lead pencil, the upper part of the stem being occu-
pied by the slender elongated tubercles. The tubercles are crowned with
pinhead-size areoles, in which there are about a hundred tiny spines, each
carrying an umbrella of minute barbs at the tip. An areole viewed under a
lens presents a most dazzling lacy pattern.

In June St. Louis was experiencing very hot weather which, of course,
intensified the heat in the greenhouses. As an example, on June 29 the
thermometer registered 128° F, in the Fern-Cycad House while the tempera-
tures in the other rooms ranged between 110 and 116° F. An unusual number
of plants dropped their leaves, and the ferns were literally burned. A roof
shade had to be applied for the first time in about 10 years. Both Crssus
sicyoides var. Jacquini and Rhynchosia phaselloides were cut down to the
ground,

In the Banana-Coffee House a Wooden Rose vine (Ipomoea tuberosa)
was set out, and soon its stems reached for the roof and then spread out over
some of the tall Euphorbias and Kigelias. This plant has airy dark green
leaves and festoons of lemon-yellow flowers which bloom during the month
of December. The startling “wooden roses” produced after flowering are
greatly sought by women for dried-plant arrangements and novelties.

In the Palm House a number of spray orchids (Dendrobium bigibbum)
were attached to a Phoenix palm, and purple blossoms appeared in December.
Cattleya Schroederae was also placed on tree trunks along with a few other
orchid hybrids. The butterfly orchid (Oncidinm sphacelatum) made a good
show in April and May. Vanilla bloomed as usual in the spring and several
flowers were hand-pollinated to produce “beans” which later were used in
an exhibit by the Parke, Davis & Co., at Kiel Auditorium, during the drug-
gists’ convention in October. Since Tower Grove Park was curtailing their
outdoor planting they presented the Garden with several specimen palms.
Two of them, pygmy date trees about 6 feet tall, were planted in beds near
the front entrance. The hedgy Myrsine africana is doing nicely near the
entrance and puts one in mind of a boxwood. One tall Fishtail Palm,
Caryota urens, had to be chopped down.

When the front and rear vestibules of the Palm House were remodeled
large panel signs were installed telling, in words and drawings, the story of
the palms and aroids. The signs have served a needed purpose and five out
of ten visitors have been observed to stop and read them. The panels are
made of tempered Masonite painted cream color with black lettering and
silhouette drawings—the whole sprayed with four coats of white shellac for
protection. Aluminum beading was used to frame them. They were exe-
cuted by Ladislaus Cutak and required three full weeks to complete.

4 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

In the exotic ranges the usual routine was followed; however, an effort
was made to propagate some of the rarer kinds of plants which came in
during the previous year. Fern rootstocks were received from the Garfield
Park Conservatory in Chicago and propagated for the Fern House which
will be remodeled in the coming year.

The lily pools in the main garden were planted on May 6, a week earlier
than in 1951. The weather was extremely warm and some of the potted
water-lilies in the greenhouse tanks were beginning to drop their leaves.
Besides the Garden hybrids, a number of new seedlings raised from seed
collected in Australia the previous year were set out for trial in the outdoor
pools. Although all three kinds resemble Nymphaca gigantea in more ways
than one there were some distinguishing features, and dried material was
prepared which will be sent to Bob Trickett in England to check with
material in the Kew Herbarium. All of the seedlings bloomed profusely
during the summer. The “Darwin Violets” which had been collected in a
swamp lagoon is to be considered as a pygmy type with darker flowers than
typical gigantea. The one from the Northern Territory is probably identical
with the type plant from Queensland, and the third, received under the
name of N. violacea, bears flowers midway in size between the pygmy and
the type. Another import, a night-blooming Nymphaea from the Belgian
Congo, can be likened to a miniature “Missouri.” However, the leaves are
smaller and the floral envelope often curves sharply downward almost parallel
to the floral stalk while the stamens stay erect—a feature not before noticed
in any of the nocturnal water-lilies grown at the Garden. This one is
destined to become a very suitable lily for small pools. A first-generation
cross between N. < “Talisman” and N. sal phurea will bear watching as it
shows a strong viviparous character. Crosses between N. sulphurea and
N. X “St. Louis” and N. sulphurea and N. * “African Gold” were also
allowed to develop fully outdoors and two good forms were produced which
merit naming. One of them produced a very full flower with 40 petals
while the other can be likened to a glorified “St. Louis.” Still another cross
developed from N. Heudelotii and N. colorata has produced a very lovely
dwarf lilac-colored flower with petaloid stamens like the beautiful N. ><
“Midnight,” giving an indication that it will be the first semi-double in the
dwarf class. Water-lilies were removed from the outdoor pools on October 24.

Mr. Ladislaus Cutak is in charge of the Main Conservatories and Exotic
Ranges.

OUTSIDE GARDENS.—

Garden maintenance is always difficult in a dry season and the year 1952
paralleled the 1950 era of droughts. While the flood waters from the North
and West were passing St. Louis last spring, our gardens were already in need

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 5

of a good shower. But that was only the beginning of the drought which
lasted until mid-November. Lawns became parched, small plants were lost
if not watered in time, and some of the woody plants will show the effects
of the drought next year unless substantial rains fall during the winter and
spring months. The hose and the permanent sprinkler systems were used a
great deal throughout the season, but in a large garden it is not possible to
care for all of the plants and so the watering program had to be keyed to the
most important plants and gardens. A rainstorm undoubtedly kills many
soft-bodied insects, but when there is no rain and the temperature is high
the spider mites increase very rapidly. These mites were troublesome last
summer, and even bedding plants, such as acalypha and tapioca, had to be
sprayed to control them.

In the fall of 1950 and again in 1951, rose plants had not ripened suf-
ficiently before their growth was cut short by an early freeze in November.
The stems of many of the hybrid tea roses were blackened and had to be cut
close to the ground level. Such hard pruning weakened the plants somewhat,
but on the other hand, the roses were not affected by black-spot and mildew
because of the low humidity. Seventy roses in nine varieties were purchased
for the rose garden and three old-fashioned roses were donated by Mr.
George D. Greene.

The Rose Society of Greater St. Louis sponsored a ‘Plant a Rose Week”
beginning March 31. On Sunday afternoon, April 6, several members of the
society demonstrated the proper way to plant and care for roses. It was
planned to do this in the test rose plot which the Rose Society of Greater
St. Louis is maintaining, but since the soil was too wet at that time the
demonstration was performed on a table south of the Palm House. Some
sixty interested rosarians gathered for this occasion and obtained help on soil
preparation, planting, pruning and the best methods of controlling insects
and diseases.

All of the beds in the Italian garden were top-dressed with leaf mold and
this was worked into the soil with a powered tiller. Much time has always
been consumed in spading the soil for the bedding plants, but with a new
type mechanical tiller which is light enough to be lifted over the hedges it
is possible to cultivate the soil in a very short time. A small gasoline-driven
mower has also been a great aid in cutting the one-foot sod strips separating
the many beds in the formal garden.

Many sections of the California privet hedge in the Italian garden were
injured by the November 1951 freeze, which necessitated cutting down all
of these plants in the spring.

Seventeen new varieties of peonies and fourteen varieties of Hemerocallis

were planted in the Linnean garden in November, these being exchange

6 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

plants sent by the firm, Gilbert H. Wild & Son of Sarcoxie, Missouri. In the
spring 550 gladiolus bulbs were planted in the Linnean garden at weekly
intervals. These gave a fine display of flowers from July to October and of
the nine varieties grown we liked the white, “Leading Lady,” the best. The
Tieman Test Garden of Florissant, Mo., donated eleven varieties of iris.

For four years the local Herb Society maintained two beds in the east
end of the Linnean garden. Last spring plants from these beds were trans-
ferred to a new herb garden on the east side of the Administration Building.
The beds that were vacated will again be planted with perennials in keeping
with the remainder of the Linnean garden.

FLORAL DispLays.—

The same schedule of floral displays was maintained as in recent years.
The poinsettias were in the conservatory until January 20. A week later
the orchids were staged, and this show continued until February 17. There
then followed a display of various primroses, cyclamen, cinerarias, amaryllis
and genistas, which was maintained until the Easter display was installed for
the opening date of April 6. The flower sermon was preached in Christ
Church Cathedral on April 27, and for this occasion numerous foliage and
fiowering plants were sent to the church. In May hydrangeas were the
featured plants, and adjoining this display the St. Louis Horticultural Society
staged a two-day spring flower show. Many iris were included in this show
because the American Iris Society was convening in St. Louis May 18-20.
Buses brought the convention visitors to see the gardens and the iris show on
Sunday afternoon, May 18. A week later, May 24 and 25, the Rose Society
of Greater St. Louis held its fifth annual rose show at the Garden. This was
the first time the Rose Society brought its show to the display house,
having held it previously in the Jewel Box at Forest Park. During the
summer months the major displays consisted of fancy-leaved caladiums
supplemented with gloxinias and delphiniums. On September 26 and 27 the
Greater St. Louis Dahlia and Chrysanthemum Society held its annual show,
and October 4 and 5 the Henry Shaw Cactus Society exhibited numerous
cacti and succulents. On October 8 the Veiled Prophet Queen’s orchid
bouquet was displayed.

The staging of the chrysanthemum show was completed for the first
Sunday in November, but since the chrysanthemums bloomed late this year
the opening date was announced for November 9. In December the brilliant
red Christmas poinsettia was displayed and also the pink and white variations.

This is probably as good a place as any in the report to describe Nature’s
own fall show. Every one will agree that it was the most gorgeous display
of autumn color in many a season in this part of the country. After an

early frost on October 6 there was a gradual increase in color in almost all

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 7

trees and shrubs with a brilliant climax about October 19. There was no
rain nor wind to mar the show, a condition that seldom prevails in any year.
Sumacs and barberries, oaks, birches, ginkgoes, sweet gums, sour gums,
maples, tulip trees, all contributed their share of color. Photographers had
a long field day to record all of the beauty of nature on their color films.

Mr. Paul A. Kohl, Floriculturist, is in charge of the outside gardens and
the floral displays.
DENDROLOGY.—

Since a separate report of the activities of this department was not sub-
mitted for 1951, the present account will cover the two-year period, 1951-52.

In the past two years, three major projects have been in progress: (1) an
inventory of the permanent living collections of hardy trees, shrubs, and
woody vines, (2) labeling of the entire collection, and (3) plant intro-
duction.

Inventory.—Unfortunately, over the years, a large percentage of the
original metal record labels on the plants throughout the Garden has been
lost. Every effort has been made to rename the entire collection as ac-
curately as possible, but in a number of ornamental groups introduced under
cultivar names, such as crabapples, mock-orange, lilacs, forsythias, cherries,
which may also be of hybrid origin, the generic name is all that now can be
indicated. Every effort shall be made in the future to safeguard the plant-
ings against a similar fate. At present, the collections have been about 90
per cent inventoried. When completed, the inventory will show about 600
named trees, shrubs, and woody climbers, not counting the introductions
since the beginning of 1951. The total woody-plant population at present
stands at about 3,000 specimens. It is lamentable that in recent years,
several severe storms have taken a heavy toll amongst the oldest and often
handsomest trees in the collection. Not a single tree of the original grove
of trees which Henry Shaw found here now remains, and very few of those
planted by him are left either. The few remaining historical Shaw trees
should and will be mapped and adequately marked.

Labeling —The trees, shrubs, and hardy climbers are being labeled as
rapidly as possible. Finally, the collection will be plotted on a series of
maps, a system which is absolutely essential for the future and welfare of all
valuable living collections. With reference maps available, a lost label will
no longer be such a serious matter. A plane-table transit has been con-
structed for the purpose of mapping the present collection and all additions
made in the future. All labels are made at the Garden, and are of two main
types: (1) record labels, and (2) display labels. The record labels are
stamped aluminum strips that will be tied to every plant in the collection.
Two types of display labels will be used, one 4” 6”, made from .040" raw

8 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

sheet aluminum, for trees and large shrubs, and the other for smaller shrubs,
of redwood painted white, measuring 9” long & 11%” wide and 3%" thick.
Both types are printed with rubber type, using a special weather-resisting
black ink. A life of about ten years is expected for both types, which is
about as economical as could be expected. During the current year, 4,804
labels have been made: 2,720 aluminum stamped record labels, 905 aluminum
display labels 4” 6”, and 1,179 wooden tie labels. A duplicate set of
display labels is made at the same time, to be used as the old labels wear out.
For various seasonal outdoor displays, an additional 536 labels were hand-
printed on green plastic.

Plant Intreduction.—Under present conditions the future of the woody
collections depends upon the maximum use of skilled maintenance with
minimum of help. However, it is hoped that plant introduction may be
continued as an ambitious project of this department over some years to
come. At least every effort is being made to introduce plants new and useful
to the Garden’s collections. In the current year, a total of 74 plants have
been added to the permanent plantings, notably 34 Austrian pines (Pinus
nigra), +~6 foot, which were moved from our nursery—now that practical
smoke control permits us to grow conifers in the city again. Our first
permanent plantings of the Dawn-Redwood (Metasequoia) are doing well,
and a few specimens are now eight feet tall. Among the outstanding intro-
ductions is Magnolia parviflora, a native of Japan and Korea. Even though
seedlings, our plants have come through four winters unscathed, and for the
past two seasons have flowered profusely. This magnolia is a large deciduous
shrub or small tree with dark green leathery leaves and scented white flowers
3—4 inches across, with a column of purple stamens. It flowers in May and
June.

Over 850 woody plants, including many conifers, have been brought
into the garden within the past two years, some to supplement what we
already have, but mostly kinds not in the collection. Of this number, 284
were purchased, and the remainder received through exchange or gift. A
policy will be followed of growing all new introductions in the nursery for a
reasonable time before transferring them to the permanent collections.
Although propagation has been kept to a minimum, much has been ac-
complished. Over the past two years, 262 packets of seed have been received
from many sources, and we now have several hundred seedlings in various
stages of development. Later, the surplus seedling material will be used for
exchange. Propagation by cuttings has been likewise restricted, but over 700
ivy cuttings (Hedera Helix “Bulgaria’”’) were made at the beginning of 1952
for planting on the street side of the garden wall along Tower Grove Avenue.
Several hundred cuttings of boxwood (Buxus sempervirens and B. microphylla

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 9

var. koreana) from the Arboretum at Gray Summit, and a like number of
various conifers from the Garden nursery have been inserted for rooting
this autumn.

During the year, 37 trees were removed from the Garden, some as dead
specimens, some to alleviate serious crowding of nearby plantings.

Dr. Frederick G. Meyer was appointed Dendrologist after his return from
England in 1951 and has served in that capacity throughout 1952.

MAINTENANCE.—

Due to the age of the Garden property, more attention must be given
each year to its maintenance. The routine work in the greenhouse and out-
side gardens demands considerable man hours, and with our limited skilled
labor only the most necessary repairs and improvements can be made. The
following work was done in the various buildings during 1952.

Main Conservatories.—The leaks in the roofs of the entrance and exit
vestibules were repaired, thus permitting the panelling to be replastered and
repainted. The paint on the columns at the main entrance was burned off,
and after being scraped the columns received three coats of paint by the use
of the spraying machine. A new column was installed to replace one which
had so deteriorated that it had become dangerous to visitors. The southeast
section of the roof glass was repainted, including the south gable of the
Economic House. Four angle iron supports were replaced by channel iron
corner supports. The deterioration of the old iron had caused settling and
cracking of the eight plate-glass windows, making their replacement neces-
sary. The interior of the south gable received two coats of paint. Three
new copper down-spouts which carried the water from the lantern roof
down through the interior of the house to the outlet drains were installed.
The galvanized lantern gable at the south, the panels of which were rusting
at the base, was repaired. Twenty-two new top ventilators were installed
in the Cycad House. The badly decayed two columns at the entrance of
the Economic House were replaced. This entire range is badly in need of
reglazing and replacing of mullions.

During high winds and storms, the Floral Display House sways slightly;
this is evident particularly during the Chrysanthemum Show when the bas-
kets of chrysanthemums hanging from the roof are observed to swing. Due
to this motion, bad leaks have developed at the base of the roof glass and
cause considerable concern, especially during the flower shows when all
exhibits are displayed on tables. The leakage has been somewhat alleviated
by the installation of 290 feet of 6-inch guttering, which diverts the water
through a series of down-spouts to the back of the planting area. The
vestibule entrance was painted both on the interior and exterior. All the
curved galvanized panels in the Citrus and Aroid Houses were sprayed with

10 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

aluminum paint. Six old mullions and 100 feet of angle iron purlins were
replaced in the Citrus House and in the orchid display alcoves. The replace-
ment of the old slate benches in the private growing houses with new con-
crete ones was completed during the year.

Linnean House.—Repairs in this greenhouse consisted of the following:
installation of 360 feet of 6-inch guttering on the inside to catch leaks from
the base of the roof glass above; replacing the old galvanized guttering and
flashing above the south gable entrance with copper; tuck-pointing the
brickwork on the entire building.

Horticultural Research Greenhouse-—The entire north greenhouse was
reglazed and repainted, bad cracks were filled, and the connecting potting
sheds were painted.

Surface Sheds and Garages.—The storage house for floral displays was
repaired, using 150 feet of lumber. All doors and window sashes were re-
painted. It might be of interest to mention that the window sashes date
back to Henry Shaw’s time, having been used in the greenhouse which stood
where the rose garden is now.

Residences.—The residences of both engineers were redecorated and both
were painted on the outside, including all the screens.

The vestibule at the entrance of the Director’s Residence was replastered.
The ceiling of the entrance was replaced and redecorated.

The Old Residence was repainted on the exterior, excluding the tower.

The Cleveland Avenue residence was painted on the exterior, and all the
interior woodwork was cleaned. When necessary, window sashes were re-
placed before painting. The basement foundation was tuck-pointed and
painted.

Main Entrance.—The ladies’ and gentlemen’s rest-rooms were redec-
orated, as were the four office rooms. During October it was necessary to
redecorate the ladies’ reception room again because of the lipstick smeared on
the walls. Two new copper down-spout flashings were installed on this
building.

Administration Building.—The roof coping was repaired and tuck-
pointed, and the window sash at the south end of the building was painted
and caulked. A bad foundation leak was repaired by digging below the
basement floor level and applying asphalt water-proof covering on both the
old foundation and the concrete footing at the south end.

Museum.—The north and south entrances were painted, and the north
gable roof flashing which had been damaged by wind storms was replaced.

Fences.—The breaks in the iron fences around the mausoleum were
welded. The iron fences along Tower Grove (excluding the main gate),
Magnolia, and Alfred Avenues were painted, as was the cyclone fence which

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 11

runs from Shaw Avenue to Russell Avenue. In all, 4,261 linear feet of
fencing were painted, 110 gallons of paint being used. A great saving of
paint was effected by using the swab roller instead of the brush, but on the
iron picket fence it was necessary to use the brush. Eighty feet of the
cyclone fence and the gate on Alfred Avenue were wrecked by autos. The

cost of the repairs was covered by insurance.

ROUTINE MAINTENANCE.—

Painting was done on over 100 garden benches, drinking fountains,
background used in floral displays, wheel-barrows, hand carts, etc.
Motor equipment was overhauled, including two Toro lawn mowers. Two
sickle bar cutters, six stand-by gasoline heaters, large tractor, and automobile
equipment were kept in repair. Also repaired were two water-lily pools in
the Economic Garden. Greenhouse ventilator controls were greased and
oiled; electric sterilizer for the experimental house was rebuilt, and one mile
of side-walk kept free of papers and rubbish, and snow in winter.

The maintenance of the City Garden is under the direction of Mr. G. H.
Pring, Superintendent.

BorLerR House.—

Major improvements to the boiler house were completed during the
summer of 1952. Two 205-horsepower Heine Water Tube Boilers, 40
years old, have been replaced by two new Springfield Water Tube Boilers,
each with a nominal rating of 210 horsepower and a maximum continuous
rating of 400 horsepower. The oil burners formerly installed in the old
boilers were reinstalled in the new boilers.

After the new boilers were erected, work was commenced on the extensive
new piping work required to connect the two new boilers to the remaining
boiler and the existing steam distribution system. The design of the new
boilers required the installation of entirely new breeching to the existing
smokestack; the new breeching is now equipped with automatic damper
controls to each of the three boilers.

A new 400-horsepower boiler feed water pump was added to the pump
room for use at times when the heating load is very light, early in the fall
and late in the spring. The boiler feed water is now treated in a new water
softener for the control of boiler scale.

Careful advance planning, together with the close cooperation of all
engaged in this work, was necessary to make certain the work would be
completed before the commencement of the 1952-53 heating season.

All of the above improvements in the boiler house were done by various
contractors working under the supervision of Mr. A. H. Vogel, consulting

engineer, who prepared the original plans.

12 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

While the contract work was progressing, regular employees of the
Garden under the Garden’s full-time engineer were busy throughout the
summer on the usual maintenance of the steam distribution system.
The most important work accomplished was the replacement and relocation
of 3,000 feet of 11%” pipe serving as heating coils in the various greenhouses.

This continues the policy of replacing every year a certain number of the
old heating coils, which show the greatest amount of wear. Eventually, all of

the old heating coils will be replaced by new ones in this manner.
ARBORETUM

There is no doubt but that “amazing” and “unusual” only partly describe
the “weather” of the past twelve months. This first half of the year fur-
nished excellent growing conditions and all plants responded. The last half,
however, showed clearly how unusual weather could become and still be
“typical” of Missouri. Fortunately, with the start plants had in the spring
they were able to survive the summer and fall. Some damage was done in
the Pinetum but mainly to two species, the Scots Pine and the Japanese Red
Pine. The varieties of Scots Pine which were available at the time that the
Arboretum was started had reached maturity. The Japanese Red Pine is a
short-lived species whose life span was rapidly ending. A few of each species
succumbed each year, no matter what effort was made to keep them grow-
ing, SO it is no surprise that many more died this year as a result of the
protracted dry, hot weather. Very little damage can be observed among
other plantings. However, a continuation of the dry spell, well into the
winter, might increase the usual mortality and appear as serious “winter
injury.”’ In no recent year has so much water been pumped from the Pinetum
lake to the reservoir nor has so much hauling of water been necessary to
irrigate plantings outside the range of reservoir lines. The extremely low
stage of the Pinetum lake permitted re-digging and shaping of the shore line.
This work, done with dragline and truck, has materially increased the capacity
of this lake. By deepening the gently sloping shore line it is hoped that
control of algae and aquatic weeds will be simplified. The removal of this
soil enabled us to fill and grade some local areas which have been or will be
planted with additional conifers.

The “chipper” has been given extensive use. Our experience indicates
that the time required to dispose of brush is 14, that of loading and hauling
by truck and about 1% that required to pile and burn. The “chips” have
been used extensively as mulch, composted with stable manure, and as cattle
bedding. So far no ill effects have been observed even when spread on a field
without previous treatment. A similar use of corncobs or sawdust would
result in a serious nitrogen deficiency. Rather, their use in a nursery field

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 13

seemed to be stimulating to the soybeans being grown for a green manure.
Brush from the clearing of a field and “thinnings” from a forest improve-
ment program thus become a new source of organic matter when returned
to the fields via the cattle barn.

Public interest in the Arboretum is best expressed by the 892 cars of
visitors counted on week-ends during April; only in January and December
were there less than 100 cars per month. Such traffic over gravel roads
results in considerable wear, especially if the weather is so dry that the use of
the grader to re-shape the roads would aggravate the dust problem. No
additional gravel was needed for road re-surfacing this past year.

In combination with a single truck the dragline was used extensively
during the year to deepen the edge of the Pinetum lake, to load and dig soil
at the Meramec River, to fill the last portion of the ditch at Pot Hole Lake,
to excavate for the septic tank and disposal field at the laboratory, and finally
to remove the silt from the East Bridge pool. The filling of ditches, even
by the use of heavy equipment, is a time-consuming and laborious job; yet
the improvement in the landscape and especially the time saved in mowing
soon pays for the operation. About 650 acres at the Arboretum must be
mowed at least once annually and those portions not grazed may require
mowing in June and again in September. A rough field, bisected with
ditches, will take twelve times as long to mow as a similar acreage after
grading.

Planting and nursery work continue at a reduced rate. Because of the
dry summer it was indeed fortunate that no more plants had been set out
the preceding summer. Plantings are successful only when maintenance
during the following two seasons is assured; propagation and plantings can
easily outstrip the maintenance facilities. Work with the fast-disappearing
prairie flora continues. A century ago these plants were of prime importance
to wildlife and the honey bee, and their re-establishment as sources of nectar
and pollen for bees and food and cover for quail appears worth investigating.
None of the species with which we are working are agricultural crops and
none are in commerce. They are not grown to-day because they have not
exhibited the adaptability so necessary for a place in the agricultural pro-
gram. It is hoped that strains will emerge, as a result of selection, which
will find a place in the stepped-up program to provide dependable sources of
food and shelter for wild life.

Through financial assistance provided by the Garden Club of St. Louis,
it has been possible to continue work on the Wildflower Trails. Most of the
directional signs and wooden plant labels wiil be refinished in time for the
spring display. An effort will be made to finish an illuminated map of the
Trail System as an aid to visitors. Crushed stone has been placed on certain

14 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

footpaths and major trails. During the peak of the fire season a hydraulic
sprayer was used to free the trails of leaves. The rig towed by a tractor
used two high-pressure guns to sweep the trails; thus providing a fire break
up to ten feet wide. The wild flower display was cut short by the relatively
short spring, but the fall display of certain species was better than ever.

Although the Arboretum was not closed during the dangerously dry
period we had no fire on the grounds; this speaks well for the thoughtfulness
and care of those visitors who walked through the woods during that ex-
plosive period. Unfortunately, there was little to see during this time when
Missouri was burned brown, and only the hardiest enthusiasts were tramping
the Trails.

The Arboretum is under the management of Mr. A. P. Beilmann.

OrcHip DEPARTMENT AT THE ARBORETUM.—

Despite a three-month summer period which included 56 days of over
90° temperature, the orchid range enjoyed a record production of flowers.
Including the botanical varieties, there were over 75,000 blooms.

Laeliocattleya “St. Louis” var. ‘“MoBotGard” gained the distinction of
being the first hybrid orchid raised at the garden from seed to receive an
“Award of Merit” certificate. The flowers from this plant were exhibited
on November 15 at the American Orchid Society meeting, in Houston,
Texas, where the award was given. Six new hybrids were named and regis-
tered at the meeting: Cattleya “D. S. Brown,” Lacliocattleya “A. A. Hunter,”
L. C. “C. W. Powell,” L. C. “L. Ray Carter,” L. C. “Tower Grove” and
So phrolaeliocattleya ‘““MoBotGard.”

Again, as last year, all the Cattleyas featured in the bouquet of the Veiled
Prophet’s Queen were hybrids developed by the Garden. Outstanding in the
group was Laeliocattleya “Dr. George T. Moore.” Besides its magnificent
color, this new hybrid has excellent shape and texture as well as remarkable
“keeping” qualities.

Two new bronze name plates have been placed in the orchid range. One
is in honor of the late Mr. D. S. Brown, who, in 1918, donated his private
collection of orchids to the Garden. This fine block of plants has served as
a foundation upon which the Garden’s present outstanding collection has
been built. The other plaque is to honor Mr. Herbert L. Dillon of Long
Island, New York. Mr. Dillon, during 1949, 1950 and 1951, presented
various parts of his fine orchid collection to the Garden, one greenhouse being
devoted solely to these plants.

A different technique for sowing orchid seed has been used during 1952.
Instead of allowing the seed to remain in the pod until ripened and dry, it is
removed as soon as the embryos are developed, and sown in this green state.
Excellent germination has resulted, using seed of various hybrid crosses which
previously had appeared to be sterile.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 15

One hundred and fifty bags of osmunda fiber were used in maintaining
the plants in good growing condition. Approximately 35,000 plants were
repotted.

Parathion Aerosal bombs were again effectively used as our only green-
house insecticide. Four complete applications, consuming an over-all total
of less than eight hours, did a very thorough job.

During the year, the orchid range has had an unsually large number of
visitors from various parts of the country. Many of these were amateur and
“hobby” growers. There were also numerous garden clubs, student groups,
and groups from various organizations. The Orchid Society of Greater St.
Louis held its October meeting at the greenhouses.

Maintenance.—

All the general maintenance at the orchid range and related buildings
was carried out by the boiler-room crew, under the supervision of Mr. Roy
Kissick, chief engineer.

One greenhouse 26’ X 100’ was completely reglazed, repainted, and all
glass reset with aluminum bar caps. The frame work was erected for a
house 13’ & 100’, which will enclose the area between two of the larger
houses. This winter, as weather permits, the glass is being set with aluminum
bar caps.

During the spring, the east half of the laboratory building adjoining the
orchid range was converted into a two-room residence apartment. By the
erection of an interior wall, the west section was retained as a three-room
laboratory area. The interior of the entire building was given two coats of
paint. Since its erection in 1946, the walls have had only a plaster finish.

A steam line from the greenhouses to the orchid-grower’s residence was
installed during the summer. A ditch 95 feet in length was dug, and 16
cubic yards of concrete used in pouring a trench to carry the necessary steam
pipes from the main heating plant. To complete the job, 140 feet of 2144”
pipe, 240 feet of 114,” pipe and 15 feet of 1” pipe, along with the necessary
valves and fittings, were used. While the initial expenditure for this im-
provement was not great, the savings realized from it during future years
should be considerable. The oil-burning furnace, formerly used in the
residence, was left intact as an emergency unit.

The task of rebuilding new cypress staging over the entire range is being
carried out as time permits; 325 feet of 5-foot staging and 200 feet of 4-
foot staging were constructed this year.

The orchid range is in charge of Mr. G. R. Lowry.

MISSOURI PLANT SURVEY
During 1952 plant collecting was carried on in fifty counties in Missouri
but principally in the still little-known northern and north-central counties

16 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

of the state, where no drought marred the vegetation as in the Ozark area
to the south. Hundreds of new records filled in important gaps in the
natural limits of geographical distribution of each species.

A highlight of the survey was the rediscovery of the Small Whorled
Pogonia orchid (Isotria medeoloides), one of the rarest orchids in the United
States. Mr. Colton Russell had found it in 1897 in Bollinger County, but
attempts to locate it again had always failed. During 1951 Mr. Oscar
Petersen reported finding it in Ste. Genevieve County, and he and Dr. Steyer-
mark made a special trip to the locality in the late spring of 1952. The
report was verified, and specimens for the herbarium have now been obtained.
A further report on this plant will be made in a forthcoming number of the
Buitetin. Other second collections made in the state were the following:
(1) Tufted Loosestrife (Lysimachia thyrsiflora) from Atchison County,
previously known only from Jackson County; (2) Carex trichocarpa and
C. stricta var. strictior, both from Maries County, previously known from
Reynolds County.

A rare and little-known Phacelia (P. ranunculacea), previously known in
Missouri only from the southeastern lowland counties, was found by the
thousands in Texas County, over a hundred miles by airline in the Ozarks
from its nearest station. The rare orchid, Rattlesnake Plantain (Good yera
pubescens), was found in Reynolds County, and an additional record from
Iron County has been communicated to the writer by Mr. Bill Bauer.

A colony of hybrid Hepatica was discovered in Reynolds County. It is
unusual to find both species of Hepatica (H. acutiloba and H. americana)
on the same hillside, since their ranges within the state seldom approach one
another. In this instance the H. acutiloba occupied the lower and middle
slopes, and H. americana the uppermost, but intergrading forms occurred on
the margins of their habitats. This colony may become important in
future studies concerning the genetics and taxonomy of these two species.
Among other unusual plants found were: white-flowered forms of H ydro-
phyllum virginianum and Houstonia minima; a pale yellow form of the
Puccoon (Lithospermum canescens); and a pale lilac-white form of. the
Ironweed (Veronia altissima).

Such rarities in Missouri were found as Great St. John’s-wort (Hypericum
byramidatum) in Holt County, one of the rosinweeds (Sil phium speciosum),
in Holt, Atchison, and Nodaway counties, and the Blue Lettuce of the loess
mounds of Atchison and Holt counties was found in Nodaway County. The
Leatherwood (Dirca palustris) was collected in Grundy County in a remote
sandstone ravine. This is the second northern Missouri record for this species,
all the other stations being in Ozark counties.

The northernmost station for the persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) in

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 17

Missouri was located during this year in Scotland County near the lowa line.
In Mercer County, another northern county bordering the Iowa line, were
found Spermolepis inermis and Specularia leptocarpa, both of which had
previously been confined to the southern and central counties of Missouri.
Near the Iowa line in Scotland County, a remote densely forested area which
the writer had for years planned to visit, was surveyed and many rare and
unusual species were collected. It is fortunate that a survey of this area was
made then as the owner has planned to tear up the area with a bull-dozer in
the spring of 1953 for purposes of agriculture.

Other regions where important discoveries were made are the following:
(1) A natural lake in Grundy County, northwestern Missouri, where were
found Pickerel Weed (Pontederia cordata), two species of Bur-reed (Spar-
ganium eurycarpum and S. androcladum), Bladderwort (Utricularia vul-
garis), and a Water Milfoil (Myriophyllum heterophyllum), being a new
northern limit for this species. Many other aquatic plants were growing pro-
fusely—a matter of interest, since some, like the Pickerel Weed, are in-
frequently encountered in the state. (2) Ralls and Pike counties where Ozark
species were recorded for the first time, adding to the evidence that this part
of Missouri is Ozarkian and escaped glaciation. (3) Unusual isolated bluff in
Moniteau County, a new western limit in the state for such species as
Miterwort (Mitella diphylla), a rare phlox (Phlox amplifolia), and White
Baneberry (Actaca pachypoda). Occurring with them were such plants as
Ginseng (Panax quinquefolius), Yellow Lady’s-slipper (Cypripedium
Calceolus var. pubescens), Golden Seal (Hydrastis canadensis), Yellowish
Bottle Gentian (Gentiana flavida), and many others, giving new range ex-
tensions of both Ozark species and ones found farther north in the state
such as the Honeysuckle (Lonicera prolifera). (4) Natural swampy
meadows in Phelps County where such rare species were discovered as White
Turtlehead (Chelone glabra) and the sedge, Rhynchospora capillacea. Un-
usual variation in Rudbeckia speciosa and R. umbrosa, found at this station,
gives promise of providing botanists interested in this genus a fertile field for
taxonomic and genetic studies. (5) Camden County, a new northwestern
limit, in an interesting swampy meadow, for species otherwise confined to
the eastern part of the state.

In the October number of Rhodora an account of some of the major
finds made in Missouri during the past two years emphasized the amount of
field work yet to be carried on. In the April-June number of the American
Fern Journal appeared a report of the new ferns and fern allies made by the
writer and Mr. E. J. Palmer during 1951. As the 1952 collecting season
came to a close, the writer received specimens from Professor Kucera, of the
University of Missouri, of the Sheepberry (Lyonia mariana) discovered by

18 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

him in Dent County. This member of the heath family, previously un-
collected in the state, indicates how much yet remains before anything like
a truly adequate knowledge of the state flora is at hand.

The Missouri Plant Survey is carried on by Dr. Julian A. Steyermark, of
the Chicago Natural History Museum, Honorary Research Associate at the
Garden.

GENETICS.—

Dr. Edgar Anderson, the Assistant Director, has spent a major portion of
his time on a series of projects which concern the relation between the Gar-
den and the public. Working with Mr. Lad Cutak, he redesigned the
entrances to the palm house which have long been a problem.

Another project has been the preparation of a series of articles about
wild flowers, designed for the general public. The first of these, a descrip-
tion of our commonest autumn wild flowers, has been completed and was
published in the BULLETIN for September and October, 1952.

Dr. Anderson’s research program continues to be centered around the
efficient measurement of species differences and the use of these measure-
ments in analyzing evolution in natural populations and in domesticated
plants. In June he illustrated and discussed these techniques at a conference
of bio-statisticians arranged by the statistical department of Iowa State
College. An invitation from Stanford University to serve as a visiting
professor of Biology during the spring quarter allowed him to try out his
techniques on the highly variable flora of the California Bay region.

Dr. Anderson’s studies having shown with increasing force the im-
portance of hybridization as an evolutionary factor, he has this year begun
a series of controlled experiments with natural and _ artificial hybrids. A
grant from the Atomic Energy Commission has enabled him to extend these
experiments and to associate with the program Dr. Henry McQuade of the
Biology staff at Harris Teacher’s College.

The techniques worked out by Dr. Anderson and others for the measure-
ment of evolution are also being used to study the evolution of plants under
domestication; in other words, to study the origin and the history of the
plants most closely associated with man. Several of Dr. Anderson’s graduate
students are carrying on investigations in this field. In September Mr. George
McCue received his master’s degree, his thesis having been a study of the
history of the uses of the common tomato. It has just been published in
the ANNats. Mr. George Freytag, who has been in charge of Dr. Anderson’s
small experimental plot in Honduras, has returned to Washington University
where he is continuing his graduate work, making detailed studies of vari-
ation in the common bean.

In June Little, Brown and Company brought out a book by Dr. Ander-

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 19

son, Plants, Man, and Life. It is designed for the general reader and dis-
cusses the insights gained into man’s own history from the study of these
plants which have so long been associated with him.

PALEOBOTAN Y.—

Dr. Henry N. Andrews, Jr., Paleobotanist to the Garden and Dean in the
Henry Shaw School of Botany, has continued with his studies of the petrified
plants of the central coal fields. Several collections have been made during
the year, chiefly from southern Illinois and eastern Kansas. An increased
teaching load, due to sharp reductions in the University budget, has reduced
the time available for research. However, some progress has been made in
his investigations of the early ferns and seed plants, and notable contribu-
tions have been made by one of his graduate students, Mr. Charles J. Felix.
During the spring Dr. Andrews completed the “Generic Index of Fossil
Plant Names,” a project that he had been working on for three years under
the jurisdiction of the United States Geological Survey; this is now in the
process of publication by the Survey.

A field trip was made in August to the southern shores of the Gaspé
region in Quebec to obtain specimens of the peculiar Devonian alga
Prototaxites. The acquisition of this and other fossil plant material during
the year has materially added to the value of our paleobotanical collection as
a teaching and research tool.

MycoLocy.—

Dr. Carroll W. Dodge, Mycologist to the Garden and Professor in the
Henry Shaw School of Botany, has spent much of the time available for
research in identifying miscellaneous collections sent in by correspondents
from the southwestern United States, the Antilles, northern and western
South America and Nigeria, and has begun a study of the collections of the
Australian National Antarctic Expedition from Heard and Macquarie
Islands where meteorological stations are being maintained. The accumula-
tion of unidentified fungi and lichens has been sorted by major groups and
they are now available for study by specialists.

Since assuming responsibility for all non-vascular cryptogams, our small
accumulations of algae have been named by specialists and inserted. All the
unidentified collections of mosses and hepatics have been sorted, most of the
mosses identified by Henry $. Conard and Edwin Bartram, the Sphagnaceae
by A. LeRoy Andrews, the Fontinalaceae by Winona Welch, and the hepatics
by William Rissanen and Margaret Fulford.

Mr. Emanuel Rudolph, Research Fellow in Mycology, completed the
routine insertion of fungi and lichens and has begun sorting the accumulated
mosses and hepatics preparatory to insertion. The volume of this material
is nearly equal to that of the organized herbarium of these groups. In

20 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

accordance with the new policy ef placing type specimens in special folders,
a search of the literature has revealed many types, especially in the classic
collections of the Bernhardi herbarium, greatly enhancing the value of the
herbarium for students of these groups. In this work we have found many
duplicates for which we have received valuable specimens in exchange.

The usual courses in bacteriology and mycology have been offered during
the academic year, assisted by Messrs. Sidney D. Rodenberg, Richard N.
Kinsley, Jr., and George Chiligiris. Routine identification of mushrooms
and cultures of fungi (human pathogens, plant pathogens, and saprophytes
which were proving industrial nuisances) have been made for correspondents.
The results of the study of tropical African lichens, mostly from Nigeria,
are being prepared for publication.

HorTICULTURE.—

Dr. Gustav A. L. Mehlquist, Research Horticulturist, resigned in June
to accept a position as Professor of Horticulture at the University of
Connecticut.

SYSTEMATICS AND FLorist1Cs.—

Dr. Robert E. Woodson, Jr., Curator of the Herbarium, completed a
revision of the North American species of Asclepias upon which he had been
working for several years past, with the aid of a grant from the American
Philosophical Society. He also was enabled to continue his studies of the
population genetics of Asclepias tuberosa with the aid of grants from the
National Academy of Science and the American Academy ot Arts and
Sciences. A second grant from the American Philosophical Society is en-
abling Dr. Woodson and Mr. Bernard C. Mikula to continue the photo-
graphing of type specimens of African plants at the British Museum
(Natural History) and the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, which was begun
by our Dr. Frederick G. Meyer three years ago.

Dr. Rolla M. Tryon, Assistant Curator, has continued his study of the
species of Selaginella allied to S. rupestris. Dr. George B. Van Schaack,
Honorary Curator of Grasses, has continued reorganizing the grass herbarium,
ordering up the genera Hordeum and Agropyrum and extracting duplicates
in these and other groups. He also has initiated a study of Aleutian Poae.

Mr. Robert Cooper, assistant in the herbarium, is completing his revision
of the Australasian species of Pittosporum in partial fulfillment of his can-
didacy for the degree of Ph.D. in the Henry Shaw School of Botany of
Washington University. Mr. Cooper is studying here on leave from his
duties as curator of the herbarium of the Auckland (N. Z.) Museum.

Mr. Jorge Leon, of Turrialba, Costa Rica, and Mr. Antonio Molina R.,
of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, are Guggenheim Fellows engaged in studies of
the Central American species of the genera Inga and Cephaelis, respectively.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN ea

Mr. Ding Hou, of the National Taiwan University, Free China, is a China
Institute in America Fellow, and is engaged in a world-wide revision of the
genus Celastrus. Both Mr. Leon and Mr. Hou are candidates for the degree
of Ph.D. in the Henry Shaw School of Botany.

At Washington University’s June commencement exercises, the degree
of Ph.D. was awarded to Mrs. R. M. Tryon, Mr. John M. Gillett, and Mr.
Hugh H. Iltis, whose research topics while studying in our herbarium com-
prised the genera Pellaea, Gentianella, and Cleome, respectively. Dr. Gillett
has returned to his duties with the Canadian Department of Agriculture at
Ottawa. Dr. Iltis has joined the Department of Botany of the University
of Arkansas. Dr. Tryon is now an assistant in the Garden library.

DEGREES AWARDED IN THE HENRY SHAW SCHOOL OF BOTANY.—

At che June 1952 commencement the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
was conferred upon the following: Robert A. Dietz, B.S., The Principia,
M.A., Washington University (Genetics); John M. Gillett, B.A., Queen’s
University (Taxonomy) ; Hugh H. Iltis, B.S., University of Tennessee, M.A.,
Washington University (Taxonomy); Alice F. Tryon, B.S., Milwaukee State
College, M.S., University of Wisconsin (Taxonomy); and Milton L. Zucker,
B.A., Washington University (Physiology).

The degree of Master of Arts was conferred upon the following: Ding
Hou, B.S., National Chung-Cheng University (Taxonomy); William B.
James, B.A., University of Delaware (Physiology) ; and Yoneo Sagawa, B.A.,
Washington University (Plant Breeding).

GRADUATE STUDENTS.—

The following graduate students were registered in the Henry Shaw
School of Botany in 1952:

Graduate Teaching Assistants: Eddie Basler, Jr., B.S. and M.S., University
of Oklahoma (Physiology); George A. Chiligiris, B.A., Washington Uni-
versity (Microbiology) ; Charles J. Felix, B.A., University of Tennessee, M.A.,
Washington University (Paleobotany); William B. James, B.A., University
of Delaware, M.A., Washington University (Physiology); Richard N. Kins-
ley, Jr., B.A., Earlham College (Mycology); George A. McCue, B.A. and
M.A., Washington University (Genetics); Bernard C. Mikula, B.S., College
of William and Mary (Taxonomy); Norton H. Nickerson, B.S., University
of Massachusetts, M.A., University of Texas (Genetics); and Roanne H.
Roeyer, B.A. and M.A., Washington University (Physiology).

Graduate Research Assistants: Yoneo Sagawa, B.A. and M.A., Washing-
ton University (Plant Breeding); Dorothy Schieber, B.A., Washington Uni-
yersity (Physiology); James Warnhoff, B.A., Washington University
(Physiology) ; and Masashi Yamada, B.A. and M.A., Washington University
(Physiology).

22 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Guggenheim Fellows (Latin American): Jorge Leon, Inter-American
Institute of Agricultural Sciences, San José, Costa Rica (Taxonomy), and
Antonio Molina, Escuela Agricola Panamericana, Tegucigalpa, Honduras
(Taxonomy).

Henrietta Heermans Scholar: Robert A. Dietz, B.A., The Principia, M.A.
and Ph.D., Washington University (Genetics).

Instructors in University College: Burton R. Anderson, B.A., M.A.,
University of Massachusetts (Paleobotany); and Robert J. Gillespie, Jr.,
B.A., Washington University (Plant Breeding).

Jesse R. Barr Fellows: Nalini Nirodi (Genetics) ; and Dorothy Ober, B.S.,
Cornell University (Plant Breeding).

National Science Foundation Fellows: Marilyn A. Gage, B.S., Pennsyl-
vania College for Women, M.A., Washington University (Plant Breeding) ;
and Sidney D. Rodenberg, B.A. and M.A., Washington University
(Physiology).

U. S. Public Health Fellow: Milton L. Zucker, B.A. and Ph.D., Wash-
ington University (Physiology).

University Fellows: Robert C. Cooper, M.A. and B.Com., University of
New Zealand (Taxonomy) ; and Hugh H. Iltis, B.S., University of Tennessee,
M.A. and Ph.D., Washington University (Taxonomy ).

University Remission of Tuition: Emanuel Rudolph, B.A., New York
University (Mycology); and Harry R. Skallerup, B.S., University of Illinois
(Genetics).

Van Blarcom Tuition Scholar: Ding Hou, B.S., National Chung-Cheng
University, M.A., Washington University.

independent Students: George F. Freytag, B.A., University of Wyoming,
M.A., Washington University (Genetics); John M. Gillett, B.A., Queen’s
University, Ph.D., Washington University (Taxonomy); Thomas A. Graven,
B.S., Washington University (Plant Breeding); Ada M. Jordan, B.S. and
M.A., University of Missouri (Plant Breeding); Taylor E. Lindhorst, B.S.,
College of Pharmacy (Physiology); Frank W. Martin, B.S., College of
Pharmacy (Physiology); Glenn E. Pollock, Jr., B.S., Washington University
(Microbiology); William H. Von Meyer, B.A., Washington University
(Microbiology) ; and Byron H. Wise, B.S., University of Florida (Taxonomy).

PUBLISHED ARTICLES.—

Paul H. Allen, Tropical Plant Collector: Distribution and Variation in Roystonea. Ceiba
31:1-18; The Swan Orchids: A Revision of the Genus Cycnoches. Parts I-V. Orchid
Jour. 1:173-185, 225-230, 273-277, 397-403: Telipogon Endresianum Kranzl. Orchid Jour.
1:292-293,

Edgar Anderson, Assistant Director of the Garden: Our Common Native Wild Flowers.
Parts I and II. Mo. Bot. Gard. Bull. 40:111-136; Plants, Life and Man. Publ. by Little,
Brown and Co.; Summer Flowers which Linger into Fall. Mo. Bot. Gard. Bull. 40:136-137;
Wild Flower Trails at the Missouri Botanical Garden Arboretum. Bull. Gard. Club America

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 23

403:54—-55; (with Amy Gage): Introgressive Hybridization in Phlox bifida. Amer. Jour. Bot.
39:399-404; (with William L. Brown): The History of the Common Maize Varieties in the
Corn Belt. Agric. Hist. 26:2-8; (with Hugh C. Cutler): Methods of Corn Popping and
Their Historical Significance. Southwest. Jour. Anthropol. 6:303—308.

Henry N. Andrews, Paleobotanist to the Garden: Some American Petrified Calamitean
Stems. Ann. Mo. Bot. Gard. 39:189-218; (with Charles J. Felix): The Gametophyte of
Cardiocarpus spinatus Graham. Ann. Mo. Bot. Gard. 39:127-135; (with Sergius H. Mamay):
A Brief Conspectus of American Coal Ball Studies. The Paleobotanist 1 (Birbal Sahni Me-
morial Volume): 66-72.

Martin Bagby, of the Arboretum staff: Magnolia acuminata as a Lawn Shade Tree. Mo.
Bot. Gard. Bull. 40:43-44.

August P. Beilmann, Manager of the Arboretum: Floods as Seen as Signs of Land-Sickness.
St. Louis Zool. Soc. Bull. 54:4-5, 8; High-Speed Ecology and the Arborist. Arborist’s News
17:85-88; Pollination and Conservation. American Bee Jour. 92:331-332; The River Bank
Grape. Mo. Bot. Gard. Bull. 39:72-74; What Tree Shall I Plant? Trans. Acad. Sci. St.
Louis 31°:1-24. 23 pls.; Why an Arboretum. Mo. Bot. Gard. Bull. 39:65-71.

Louis G. Brenner, Assistant Manager of the Arboretum: Forest Quadrat Studies at the
Arboretum, and Observations on Forest Succession. Ann. Mo. Bot. Gard. 39:165-172;
Native Food and Cover Plants for Quail. Mo. Quail Hunter 8:12-15. Winter issue; Salads
for Quail. Mo. Bot. Gard. Bull. 40:165-166.

Ladislaus Cutak, Horticulturist in charge of Conservatories: Collecting Bromels in
Mexico. Bromeliad Soc. Bull. 2:8-9. Jan.-Feb.; Spine Chats. Monthly feature in Cactus
Jour. of Cactus & Succ. Soc. Amer.; They’re All Sansevierias. Popular Gardening 3:28-29,
76-79. Feb.

Robert A. Dietz, Graduate Student in the Henry Shaw School of Botany: The Evolution
of a Gravel Bar. Ann. Mo. Bot. Gard. 39:249-254; Variation in the Perfoliate Uvularias.
Ann. Mo. Bot. Gard. 39:219-247

Charles J. Felix, Graduate Student in the Henry Shaw School of Botany: A study of the
Arborescent Lycopods of southeastern Kansas. Ann. Mo, Bot. Gard. 39:263-286; (with Henry
N. Andrews, Jr.): The Gametophyte of Cardiocarpus spinatus Graham. Ann. Mo. Bot.
Gard. 39:127-135.

Paul A. Kohl, Floriculturist: The Angle-Pod (Gonolobus laevis). Mo. Bot. Gard. Bull.
40:36-37.

Robert J. Gillespie, Jr., Graduate Student in the Henry Shaw School of Botany: A Base-
ment Window Greenhouse. Mo. Bot. Gard. Bull. 40:41—43.

George A. McCue, Graduate Student in the Henry Shaw School of Botany: The History
of the Use of the Tomato: An Annotated Bibliography. Ann. Mo. Bot. Gard. 39:289-348.

Gustav A. L. Mehlquist, Research Horticulturist: The Best Light and Temperature for
African-Violets. Wisc. Hort. 42:224-225. (Reprinted from “Saintpaulias” in March 1952
Garden BULLETIN); Saintpaulias. Mo. Bot. Gard. Bull. 40:49-64; Cymbidium erythrostylum
and C. pumilum as Progenitors of a New Class of Cymbidiums. Orchid Jour. 1:109-113;
An Introduction to Cymbidium. Orchid Jour, 1:100-103. (Reprinted from “The An-
cestors of Our Present-Day Cymbidiums” in May 1946 Garden BULLETIN).

Frederick G. Meyer, Dendrologist: London’s Chelsea Physic Garden. Arboretum Bull.
(Publ. Univ. Washington Arb. Fund) 15%:4-6, 30-33; Sumacs. Arboretum Bull. 15°:16—22.

George H. Pring, Superintendent of the Garden: Growing Victoria Cruziana from Seed.
Mo. Bot. Gard. Bull. 40:85-89; Missouri Botanical Garden Report on Feeding. Orchid
Digest 16:165-166. (Reprinted from June 1952 Garden BuLLETIN); (with G. R. Lowry,
Orchidologist): Further Experiments on Orchid Culture. Mo. Bot. Gard. Bull. 40:104—-108.

Emanuel D. Rudolph, Graduate Student in the Henry Shaw School of Botany: More
than a Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Bull. Torr. Bot. Club 79:329; Mushrooms in and out of
the Herbarium. Mo. Bot. Gard. Bull. 40:167-169.

Julian A. Steyermark, Honorary Research Associate: Autumn Colors in 1952. Mo. Bot.
Gard. Bull. 40:169-170; An Example of How Dams Destroy Valuable Scientific Records.
Scientif. Month. 74:231-233; The Genus Platycarpon (Rubiaceae). Amer. Jour. Bot. 30:418—
423; A New Carex from Guatemala and Honduras. Ceiba 31:23-24; New Missouri Plant
Records (1949-1951). Rhodora 54:250-260; Rare Missouri Plants. I—Yellow Fringed
Orchis, U—The Ozark Chestnut, [I—Ozark Trillium. Mo. Bot. Gard. Bull. 40:39-41,
77-82; (with Ernest J. Palmer): New Pteridophyte Records from Missouri. Amer. Fern
Jour. 42:61-66; (with Floyd A. Swink): Plants New to Illinois and to the Chicago Region.
Rhodora 54:208—213.

24 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Alice F. Tryon, Library Assistant: Rosmarein and Rosemary. Mo. Bot. Gard. Bull.
40: 161-165.

Rolla M. Tryon, Jr., Assistant Curator of the Herbarium: A Newly Discovered Cache of
Engelmanniana. Mo. Bot. Gard. Bull. 40:46; A Sketch of the History of Fern Classification.
Ann. Mo. Bot, Gard. 39:255—262.

SCIENTIFIC AND PopuLaR LECTURES.—

Edgar Anderson, Assistant Director of the Garden: a series of lectures at the University
of Michigan, Ann Arbor—Jan. 9, before the ecology round table of the laboratory of human
biology, “The Efficient Measurements of Specific and Racial Differences”; Jan. 10, University
lecture series, “What is Zea Mays?”, and before the botany graduate seminar, ‘The History
of Rosa alba”; Jan. 19, Washington University Association lecture series, “What is a
Species?”; Feb. 1, St. Louis Unit, Herb Society of America, “How Should We Study Herbs
in St. Louis”; Feb. 16, Cosmopolitan Club, Washington University, and March 5, Christ
Church Cathedral Luncheon Club, “Impressions of India”; March 18, Woman’s Alliance,
First Unitarian Church, “Understanding India”; April 17, Hispanic World Affairs seminar
at Stanford University, Calif., “What is Zea Mays?”; April 28, biological sciences seminar,
Stanford University, ‘How to Measure Species Difference”; May 15, California Botanical
Society, “Rosa alba, the Rose of the Renaissance”; May 27, genetics seminar, University of
California, Berkeley, “The Evolutionary Importance of Introgression”; June 14, Annual Phi
Beta Kappa dinner, Stanford University, “Adventures in Chaos”; July 20, Franklin County
Firefighters’ Association, Gray Summit, Mo., “Impressions of India”; Oct. 16, Darling Lec-
ture, Allegheny College, Meadville, Pa., “What is a Species and Why Bother?”; Nov. 12,
National Academy of Sciences annual meeting, St. Louis, “The Ecology of Introgression in
Adenostoma”; Dec. 2, Women’s Association, Ladue Chapel, “Impressions of India”; Dec.
10, Southern Iilinois University lecture series, Carbondale, “What is a Species and Why
Bother?”; Dec. 15, University of Illinois, division of biological sciences lecture, Urbana,
“Adventures in Chaos”; Dec. 16, botany seminar, University of Illinois, “Differences at the
Species Level; Their Measurement and Significance”; Dec. 27, took part in panel on ‘Times
Arrow and Evolution,” of the Society of Systematic Zoology at the Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci.
meetings in St. Louis; Dec. 28, A.A.A.S. meetings, botanical sciences section, “Experimental
Approaches to the Problems of the Species and the Problem of the Genus.”

Henry N. Andrews, Paleobotanist: Nov. 10, Nat. Acad. Sci. annual meeting, St. Louis,
“Recent Studies of Petrified Plants from the Central American Coal Fields.”

August P. Beilmann, Manager of the Arboretum: Feb. 14, Midwestern Chapter, National
Shade Tree Conference, Chicago, “High-Speed Ecology and the Arborist”; Feb. 22, Pine
Tree Garden Club, “Planting and Care of Trees”; Feb. 28, Maplewood Christian Church,
“The Conservancy District”; March 7, Washington, Mo., Garden Club, “Landscaping the
Home Grounds”; March 15, University of Missouri, Columbia, ‘Beekeepers’ short course,
“Some Important Nectar and Pollen Plants”; June 26, Group 1, Webster Groves Garden
Club, “Trees”; Oct. 15, Academy of Sciences of St. Louis, “Early Forests of Missouri.”

Ladislaus Cutak, Horticulturist in charge of Conservatories: Jan. 13, before the Henry
Shaw Cactus Society, Oct. 22, Ladies’ Auxiliary, First Divine Science Church, Nov. 13,
Shiloh Valley Garden Club, O'Fallon, Ul., and Civic Garden Club, Springfield, Ill, ‘Four
Seasons in the Garden”; Jan. 22, The Dunkers, first annual reception to artists, “Floral
Architecture’; Feb. 10, Henry Shaw Cactus Society, “Cacti and Succulents in the Missouri
Botanical Garden”; Feb. 28, Circle B, Women’s Association of Kirkwood Presbyterian
Church, “Cacti and Succulents in Arrangement”; March 12, Ladies’ Aid of the Evaneglical
Children’s Home, “Know Your Garden—Shaw’s Garden”; March 26, Young Wives Club of
the Carondelet Y.W.C.A., “Caring for House Plants”; May 11, Henry Shaw Cactus Society,
“How to Graft Cactus”; May 27, Women’s Association, Tyler Place Presbyterian Church,
“Cacti, Succulents and Exotic Foliage Plants”; July 29, Tower Grove Kiwanis Club, “High-
lights in the Missouri Botanical Garden”; Oct. 3. St. Louis Horticultural Society, ‘Exotic
Plants for the Home.”

Carroll W. Dodge, Mycologist: Feb. 11, Men’s Garden Club of Webster Groves, “Molds
in the Soil.”

Paul A. Kohl, Floriculturist: April 15, Women’s Auxiliary to the National Postal ‘rans-
port Association, “Roses”; April 24, Greater St. Louis Hills Home Owners’ Association,
“Gardening in St. Louis Hills”; June 6, St. Louis Horticultural Society, and June 24, Green
Thumb Garden Club of Brentwood, ‘‘Roses.”

Gustav A. L. Mehlquist, Research Horticulturist: Jan. 17, Texas State College for
Women, Denton, Texas, ‘SNew Trends in Horticulture.”

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 25

Fred G. Meyer, Dendrologist: Jan. 9, before the Shrewsbury Garden Club, and Feb. 4,
Tree Lovers Group, at the First Unitarian Church, “Kew Gardens”; March 31, Professional
Women’s Club, Kingshighway Presbyterian Church, and May 11, Women’s Association of
Giddings-Boyle Presbyterian Church, “Four Seasons at the Garden”; Oct. 15, Heather
Garden Club of the Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., “Gardenia Culture, and Winter
Maintenance of the Garden.”

George H. Pring, Superintendent: Jan. 4, before St. Louis Horticultural Society,
‘European Gardens”; Jan. 30, American Heating and Ventilation Association, “Mr. Shaw’s
Garden”; Feb. 28, Men’s Club of Tyler Place Presbyterian Church, “With the Prings in
Europe”; March 6, Bob Goddard Show at Congress Hotel, Station, KXLW, “Mr. Shaw’s
Garden”; March 8, Station WLAC, Nashville, Tenn., “Orchids”; March 10, Landscape and
Nurserymen’s Assn., April 1, St. Clair County Garden Club, East St. Louis, Hl, April 15,
Men’s Council of St. Peter’s Memorial Presbyterian Church, and April 17, St. Louis Florists’
Club, “European Gardens”; May 8, faculty seminar, St. Louis University School of Medicine,
“Development of Orchids from Seed to Flowering Plants’; May 9, Orchid Society of
Greater St. Louis, “Orchids—Seeds to Flower”; May 12, Webster Groves Garden Club,
‘Judging Gardens and Plants”; May 19, convention of American Iris Society, at Hotel
Chase, “Mr. Shaw’s Garden”; June 16, Webster Groves Men’s Garden Club, “European
Gardens”; Oct. 3, Station WEW, St. Louis University, Oct. 5, over television, Station KSD,
and Oct. 7, over NBC hook-up at the Veiled Prophet’s Ball, St. Louis Municipal Auditorium,
“The Queen’s Bouquet”; Oct. 14, Bible Class, Christ Church Cathedral, Oct. 28, Normandy
Kiwanis Club, and Nov. 2, Methodist Church, Kirkwood, Mo., ‘European Gardens.”

Robert E. Woodson, Jr., Curator of the Herbarium: Nov. 12, National Academy of
Science annual meeting, St. Louis, “A Biometric Analysis of Natural Selection in Ascle pias
tuberosa.”

HERBARIUM

During the past year 15,887 specimens were mounted and inserted in the
herbarium, bringing the estimated total to 1,632,908 sheets. Within the
same period 9,481 specimens were accessioned for future mounting and in-
sertion, of which 8,456 were received through exchange with other botanical
establishments and 1,025 by gift. Continuing the trend of recent years,
Africa was the largest single source of herbarium specimens accessioned, with
a total of 5,234 sheets. Our African section is rapidly becoming not only
an excellent reference collection, but a research collection as well.

A very time-consuming but necessary function of an herbarium such as
ours is concerned with the lending and borrowing of specimens with other
herbaria. During 1952 a total of 8,014 herbarium specimens was lent to 21
domestic and 4 foreign herbaria. On the other hand, for the use of our
students and staff a total of 12,955 specimens were borrowed from 12
domestic and 8 foreign herbaria. This illustrates succinctly the research
activity of our herbarium and our necessary dependence upon the facilities
of our sister museums.

A total of 4,666 specimens were distributed from our herbarium in con-
tinuance of exchanges with others.

The administration of a major herbarium by four staff members—all on
a part-time basis and with only the most incidental and irregular clerical
and stenographic help—frequently is a very discouraging occupation. ‘Thanks
to the apparently indomitable Missouri Botanical Garden morale, we feel that
our herbarium is continuing to increase in stature and usefulness, far beyond

its material resources.

26 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

LIBRARY -

Fewer books and pamphlets were catalogued in 1952 than in recent years,
but the ones accessioned were important because many of them were rare or
else completed a serial run. As a matter of fact, the library is not so much
in need of books as of funds to keep up the excellent collections we already
have. Recently a botanist who had done a great deal of bibliographical
work in various libraries wrote us: ‘The more I see of various pre-
Linnean collections (I saw a magnificent one last week) the more I am im-
pressed with the Mo. Bot. Gard.’s. Unfortunately, I am also depressed by
the condition into which they are falling.” This condition was no news to
us, and unless something is done shortly all our early botanical works will
have so deteriorated as to be beyond repair. The library staff has done every-
thing possible, with the limited time and material available, to save them,
and during the summer they treated about 600 books, using a plastic glue
for weak bindings and a transparent adhesive for torn and cracked pages.
The volumes so treated were put in a more usable state, at least temporarily,
and if the treatment proves to be enduring it will be used on other volumes.
However, what most of the books need is rehabilitation by a professional
bookbinder specializing in old books.

As an indication of the completeness of the Garden library for research,
only 38 publications were borrowed from other institutions for the use of
the Garden staff and students, while 259 interlibrary loans were made to 43
institutions during the year. The loans varied from a popular pamphlet on
herbs borrowed by the St. Louis Art Museum to a technical publication bor-
rowed by the Institute for Nuclear Studies, at Oak Ridge, Tenn.

In September Dr. Alice Tryon was appointed to the library staff. Having
done most of the bibliographic work on her doctor’s thesis in the Garden
library, she was already familiar with botanical references, In addition to
having charge of interlibrary loans, she has inventoried and recatalogued the
publications of Italian botanical gardens.

New Accessions.—Probably the most important purchases during the
year were the completing volumes or parts of five serials. All of these
were purchased through foreign catalogues, but missing volumes of an
equally important publication—Vols. 1-9 of Physis (Revista de la Asociacion
Argentina de Ciencias Naturales) —were obtained in exchange for duplicate
herbarium specimens and duplicate volumes of a Dutch serial. A future
exchange of Physis with our ANNALS was also assured.

Publications received in 1952 other than those found in most libraries
were the following: Gunnerus, J. E., Flora Norvegica. Pars I & II (1766—
1772); Luckhoff, C. A., The Stapeliae of southern Africa; Motyka, J. L.,
Lichenum Generis Usnea studium monographicum, 2 vols. (1936-46) ;

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 27

Reise der Oesterreichischen Frigatte “Navarra” um die Erde. 3 vols.; Ochse,
J. J., Fruits and Fruit-culture (1931); Trochain, J., Contribution a V’étude
de la vegetacion du Senegal (1940); Velenosky, J., Novitates mycologicae
novissimae (1947), and Species novae Basidiomycetum (1947); Wallich,
N., Tentamen florae Nepalensis illustratae. Pt. 1 (1824).

Photostatic reproductions were made of several unobtainable botanical
classics, among which was Jacquin’s ““Enumeratio systematica plantarum
quas in insulis Caribbaeis vicinaque America” (1762). A microfilm of Vol.
IV of Ruiz & Pavon’s ‘Flora Peruviana” (1802) was also purchased.

Garden Publications.—Most of the work connected with issuing the two
Garden publications, the monthly BULLETIN and the quarterly ANNALS, is
done in the library. The librarian prepares the manuscripts for the printer,
proofreads them, compiles the indexes, and does the secretarial work relative
to publication, while Miss Ida Kohl, a library assistant, has charge of the
subscriptions and exchanges. Volume XXXIX of the quarterly ANNALS,
which was issued during the year, contains four doctors’ theses and one
master’s thesis, the other papers constituting the results of the investigations
by members of the staff in the Henry Shaw School of Botany.

More than half of the ANNats issued are sent to other scientific institu-
tions in exchange for their publications, many valuable journals being
received thereby. The foreign exchanges are sent through the International
Exchange Service of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, which ships
them to their destinations free of charge. Many of the BULLETINS are sent
gratis to the “Friends of the Garden,” some are exchanged for other horti-
cultural publications, and some are sold on subscription or as separate num-
bers. The cash receipts during the year for all the Garden publications,
including post-cards, were $5,845.25.

Visitors—Among the out-of-town consultants of the library and her-

barium during the year were the following:

Dr. Leon Croizat, of the Universidad de los Andes, Merida, Venezuela; Dr. Jose Cautre-
casas, of the Chicago Museum of Natural History; Dr. Pierre Dansereau, of University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor; Dr. Robert A. Dietz, of University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Dr. W.
H. Emig, of University of Pittsburgh; Dr. Norman Fassett, of University of Wisconsin,
Madison; Dr. Raymond Fosberg, of George Washington University, Washington, D. C.;
Dr. George J. Goodman, of University of Oklahoma, Norman; Dr. John J. Finan, of the
Institute of American Affairs, State Department, Washington, D. C.; Dr. Alexander Grob-
mann, of the Escuela Agricola Nacional “La Molina,” Lima, Peru; Dr. Charles B. Heiser, of
Indiana University, Bloomington; Dr. Hugh H. Iltis, of University of Arkansas, Fayetteville;
Mrs. Ida K. Langman, of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia; Dr. H. de Lazslo,
of the Royal Institution, London, England; Dr. W. R. McAtee, of Chapel Hill, N. C.; Miss
Fleanor McGuilliard, of the University of Chattanooga, Tenn.; Dr. Rogers McVaugh, of
University of Michigan; Dr. John Adam Moore, of Louisiana Polytechnic Institute, Ruston;
Dr. Balaji Mundkur, of Southern Illinois University, Carbondale; Dr. David J. Rogers, of
Allegheny College, Meadville, Penn.; Dr. Lloyd H. Shinners, of Southern Methodist University,
Dallas, Texas; Dr. A. J. Sharp, of University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Mr. FE. E. Stanford,

28 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

of the College of the Pacific, Stockton, Calif.; Dr. H. K. Svenson, of American Museum of
Natural History, New York; Dr. Delbert Swartz, of University of Arkansas, Fayetteville;
Mr. H. A. Steavenson, of the U. S. Soil Conservation Service, Elsberry, Mo.; Dr. Paul
Weatherwax, of Indiana University, Bloomington.

Statistical Information—There have been donated to the library or
received in exchange for our publications during the year: 573 books valued
at $2,293.09; 1,337 pamphlets valued at $427.90; 5 maps valued at $4.75.
The purchases consisted of 189 books at a cost of $1,299.34, and 58 pamph-
lets or parts of volumes at a cost of $133.57. One set of micro-cards was
purchased, 1 micro-film, and 3 books were photostated.

The library now contains 61,582 books and 107,413 pamphlets, and 553
manuscripts. The number of index cards now totals 1,339,084, of which
5,107 were added during the year, 880 having been written by Garden
employees. During the year 122 books were bound, and 600 were repaired
by the library assistants.

ANNUAL BEQUESTS

The annual flower sermon, “On the goodness of God as shown in the
growth of flowers, fruits, and other products of the vegetable kingdom,”
provided for in the will of Henry Shaw, was preached at Christ Church
Cathedral, on Sunday, May 22, by the Rt. Rey. Arthur C. Lichtenberger,
Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese of Missouri.

The Gardeners’ Banquet Fund was used to provide turkeys for the em-
ployees at Christmas.

ATTENDANCE FOR 1952

(Not including visitors to Arboretum)

Week-days Sundays

JT AY Yc aaa nade gece avons dareesctvalpvsesentnnesth axceceiceeesiaee 2,876 6,481
Februvar y..i:<0sc0scc/scccgdesssscaesctecstdesesseascecssecsiersoessoee casVesadecabedecdetcsscen 5,352 9,506
NA AEE cw s sccn cs fence ces tvs ag te eeesadedeglecetaeaehdsicevsse tect teuaes 3,534 5,428
Miele t pease ese oe dees certo dinnsatentenceteseeehns 2 9,331 16,734
WM orcs acvcsas eerie ob ccise cd tutes coop dc tialicata ug etre eaieec ates os 15,610 11,704
NUN oe coos apc sence scaacks stan decnateadetecebe-4eteszecteaasyevehuazceiescaes.tevdesn ees 9,950 16,754
| 1 5 Seen nn AIS ene eSB SO SR? CORNET PE UP RCRET eve 11,425 6,778
FA 4) | noo ee a ES a Re TL ee 16,424 10,765
PSD COTE son nce ss aa 5s vo tehag eka cus cl od sa ca scnth odes esi dteagaceiscttessaustnsasentee 16,780 6,632
1G [ok 0) 0) 5 eee mee Pe ne Ri, ORNS er On oN oo ees Pe oe ONS ee 10,119 8,642
1. £07120 | ©) eee ae SS SP a ery 10,059 25,610
DOC em DC oesacc ese nsession pees pape tecsetescacacensdd oececeivecnieetsueserssecasesrsctevsinsdet 4,954 8,022
116,414 133,056

116,414

Total 249,470

Respectively submitted,

GEORGE T. Moore, Director.

THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Richard J. Lockwood_.. Bagels eae eee President
ET Be Sea, Gy | 1 a ee Cee SBE en eee eee Vice-President
Eugene Pettus - Second Vice-President

Dudley French George T. Moore

Henry Hitchcock A. Wessel Shapleigh

John S. Lehmann Ethan A. H. Shepley

Robert Brookings Smith

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS

Arthur H. Compton _Chancellor, Washington University
Joseph M. Darst______-_-_-------------—---- Mayor of the City of St. Louis
Stratford L. Morton. __ President, St. Louis Academy of Science
Arthur C. Lichtenberger___..______ _-. Bishop of the Diocese of Missouri
James Fitzgerald... President, Board of Education of St. Louis
eeald: Cit, cee nar lenienecinsacsasiacs DOOR OUAEY
STAFF
George T. Moore___.-------———--———--—------—-- Director
Edgar Anderson ~~ ---.-------—------------------------3 nn Assistant Director
Hermann von Schrenk | clas Eee tera caine Pathologist
Carroll W. Dodge --_---------- aed __...Mycologist
Robert E. Woodson, Jr. a Curator of Herbarium
Henry N. Andrews.__.-.--------------------- _Paleobotanist
Rolla M.. Tryon... moh SS ethene Meee te Assistant Curator of Herbarium
George B. Van Schaack____-------------—------------------ Honorary Curator of Grasses
Julian A. Steyermark__... Honorary Research Associate
Nell C. Horner _Librarian and Editor
Geraia Ulric) 432, e Business Manager
George H. Pring —-- See eRe een ee Superintendent
Paul A. Kohl ...-—____—_-.---_ Floriculturist
Ladislaus Cutak..___------ siesta Horticulturist in charge of Conservatories
Frederick G. Meyer_----.-------------------------------------—-----—----—--——-—- Dendrologist
Kenneth A. Smith... haha 2 nee ea Engineer
August P, Beilmana_—__-----__--___—- Manager of the Aahorecuns Gray Summit
Louis G. Brenner__. es _Assistant Manager of the Arboretum
GR. Lowry In charge of Orchids

Paul H. Allen ie ig Tropical Plant Collector

SOME FACTS ABOUT THE GARDEN

The Missouri Botanical Garden was opened to the public by Mr.
Henry Shaw about 1860. From that date until his death in 1889 it
was maintained under his personal direction. Although popularly
known as “Shaw’s Garden” the name Missouri Botanical Garden
was chosen by Mr. Shaw and he definitely indicated that he wished
it called by that name. The Garden passed at his death into the
hands of a Board of Trustees, designated in Mr. Shaw’s will, and
the Board so constituted, exclusive of certain ex-officio members,
is self-perpetuating. By a further provision of the will the immedi-
ate direction of the Garden is vested in a Director, appointed by
the Board. The Garden receives no support from city or state but
is maintained almost exclusively from the estate left by Henry
Shaw. Since 1939 many Garden Clubs and interested individuals
have contributed to a “Friends of the Garden Fund” which is used
in developing the new Arboretum, located at Gray Summit, Mo.
The Arboretum (1) serves as a source of plants, trees and shrubs
for the city Garden; (2) affords areas for gradually establishing
a pinetum, a wild-flower reservation and various other features
on a scale not possible in the city; (3) provides greenhouses for
some 50,000 orchid plants.

The city Garden comprises 75 acres, where about 12,000 species
of plants are grown, both out of doors and under glass. It is open
every day in the year except New Year’s Day and Christmas; week
days, 8:00 a. m. until 7:00 p. m.; Sundays, 10:00 a. m. until 7:00
p.m. The greenhouses are closed every day at 5:00 p. m.

The main entrance to the Garden is at Tower Grove and Flora
Place, on the Sarah bus line (No. 42). The Southampton buses
(No. 80), direct from downtown, pass within three blocks of the

main entrance.

VISSOURI BOTANICAL
GARDEN BULLETIN

CONTENTS

Ponga Ware Our Self-Pruning Persimmon

River Control in Missouri Upland Cress

Shouldn’t We Try Hybrid Quail? Book Reviews

Cattleyas as House Plants For Sale: Engelmann Papers
Notes

Volume XLI February, 1953 Number 2

Cover: Prepared stem of Black Ponga (New Zealand Tree Fern).

Office of publication: 306 E. Simmons Street, Galesburg, Illinois.

Editorial Office: Missouri Botanical Garden, 2315 Tower Grove Avenue,
St. Louis, 10, Missouri.

Published monthly except July and August by the Board of Trustees of the
Missouri Botanical Garden. Subscription price: $2.50 a year.

Entered as second-class matter January 26, 1942, at the post-office at Gales-
burg, Illinois, under the Act of March 3, 1879.

Please: Do not discard a copy of the Bulletin. If you have no further use for yours
pass it along to a friend or return it to the Garden. Return postage will
be guaranteed.

Missouri Botanical
Garden Bulletin

Vol. XLI FEBRUARY, 1953 No. 2

PONGA WARE
ROBERT COOPER

The cover photograph shows a short length of the stem of a New Zealand
tree fern, Cyathea medullaris Sw. The trunk of the tree fern is usually
covered with matted fibers in the lower part, and marked higher up with
the scars of fallen fronds and the bases of old fronds. In the specimen
illustrated the fibers have been cut away exposing the vascular supply to
the leaves and roots, and the central pith has been removed. The specimen
was sent to the Missouri Botanical Garden by Mr. H. J. Dentzman of St.
Louis, who received it from Mr. G. L. Miller of Te Awamutu, New Zealand.

Quite handsome pots and garden ornaments are made from the whole
trunk which may attain a diameter of two feet or more at the base. Turning
these is dirty work, however, and very hard on the tools. The broken fibers
are very popular in orchid culture. The whole trunks are used for garden
paths, holding banks, garden drain-pipes, ornamental fences and fern-
houses. New shoots may arise from the cut stems and add to the beauty
of the structure.

Stems which have been cleaned and bleached are made into vases, powder-
bowls, and ash-trays. One of my associates on making inquiries found that
Cyathea medullaris is the species used. Turning must be done while the
trunk is still green. The soft central pith is then scraped out and the article
is left to cure (the white ground tissue shrinks away from the hard black
masses of fibers). Methods of curing and bleaching are carefully guarded
trade secrets. The dried stem will not hold water so an iron or glass con-
tainer is fitted in the center. Usually the outer surface is polished and
varnished, and the finished vase, ash-tray, or powder-bow] sells for two to
three dollars or more. Unfortunately, there seems to be only one manu-
facturer, and as he had not been to town for some time my associate was
unable to send me any specimens of his wares.

Cyathea medullaris, better known perhaps as the Black Tree Fern, Black
Ponga, or Mamaku, is one of the largest and most imposing of the tree ferns.
Its trunk reaches 50 or more feet in height, bearing a crown of spreading

(29)

30 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

fronds at times as much as 20 feet long. The strong, bright green leaves are
borne on glistening black stalks. Dobbie, an ardent New Zealand pteridol-
ogist and author of a very popular book on New Zealand ferns, found the
average daily growth of the fronds to be 2 inches, and the greatest daily
growth to be 4 inches. He considered that the stems did not grow more
than a foot in height each year.

The first European botanists to collect specimens of this tree fern were
John Reinhold Forster and his son George Forster, who accompanied Captain
James Cook on his second voyage to the South Seas in the years 1772-1775.
The plant was described in 1786 as Polypodium medullare by George Forster
in an attractive little book entitled “De Plantis Esculentis Insularum Oceani
Australis Commentatio Botanica” in which details of 54 edible plants are
given. Forster applied the specific name ‘“‘medullare” in reference to the
fact that the pith tissues of the stem consist of a mealy substance, resembling
sago, which was used by the Maori for food. It was quite palatable, after
being cooked in an oven, and possibly took the place of potatoes when
roasted slave or enemy was served as the main dish. The aborigines of south-
east Australia also used the pith of C. medullaris for food, and the natives
of New Caledonia ate the pith of an allied species, C. Vieillardii Mett.

THE WATERSHED DISTRICT AS AN APPROACH TO RIVER
VALLEY DEVELOPMENT IN MISSOURI

AUGUST P. BEILMANN

(The following paper was presented before the Missouri State Chamber of Commerce by
August P. Beilmann, Manager of the Missouri Botanical Garden Arboretum. Though various
other members of the Garden staff are in complete sympathy with Mr. Beilmann’s point of
view, publishing the paper does not in any way commit the BULLETIN or the Missouri
Botanical Garden as having publicly endorsed his position. It is rather that as a public
service we are giving wider currency to the personal opinion of the member of the staff
most qualified to have an informed opinion on this controversial subject.)

We feel that any approach to more river work, under any guise, must
be realistic. Nationally we can no longer afford the luxury of building dams
just because some bureau, aided and abetted by local balloon peddlers, feels
that it has found a location where its authority will not be questioned or
challenged. To-day none of us are free of the tax load, no little part of
which goes to pay for these grandiose schemes. Neither can we, as a nation,
afford the luxury of destroying our resources.

After considerable study, the Agricultural Committee of the St. Louis
Chamber of Commerce, in 1946, opposed the construction of high dams.
They were influenced by a letter from State Geologist, Dr. Edward L. Clark,

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN ai

ec

who wrote: . there is no question but what high dams will inundate
mineral deposits . . . the Osceola Dam will inundate many acres of land
which should produce coal at some future date.” He also wrote “that it
was difficult to determine the damage which will be done by dams on the
Meramec River.” He then pointed out that we are now mining minerals
considered too low in value 25 years ago and that “no one can predict what
grade ore will be mined in the next 25 years.”

Can we as Missourians, as Americans, and as taxpayers afford the luxury
of such a wanton destruction of our resources? Dr. Clark referred only to
the minerals; but since over 10 per cent of our bottomland would be flooded
by the proposals for damming our rivers, can Missouri throw away over a
million acres of her best farm land? Can we multiply this by 48 (the
and feed the rest of the world
besides? And there is a proposal to dam every river in the country. That

number of states) and still remain well fed

was Harry Truman’s statement to the delegation of ladies from Blue Valley
when they called on him at Kansas City to protest the construction of
Tuttle Creek Dam. He told them that there was no need to protest since
“they’

>

were going down every river valley in the country.

Then there is the little matter of human rights and dignity. We seem
to be in a dither to ferret out and correct abuses of human rights wherever
they may be found throughout the world. But what of the good people we
dispossess in our own river valleys? They are the folks who made America;
it was their industry that permitted the creation of the very bureaus whose
objectives seem aimed at the destruction of their creators. If you think
this reference to a bureaucratic Frankenstein is too blunt then read the
report of the Missouri Division of Resources and Development, an agency
which studied the effects of Wapapello on the people and the country during
and after the completion of that dam. They point out that only in the
condemnation proceedings is there any attempt to hold down costs. During
that stage of the game the finest talent is brought in to see that there is no
overpayment for confiscated property. No compensation is made for the
year or years which might elapse before a farmer or business-man can re-
establish himself and again earn a living. No consideration is made for in-
flated markets when many people are uprooted and forced to acquire new
farms and new business sites. But after the upheaval and confiscation the
ugly head of economy will never again be seen; then it becomes a race to
see how grand and costly a scheme can be evolved.

As you probably know, the “high-dammers” have kept abreast of the
times. The first river work was designed to aid navigation. This began in
1826 when Mr. Shreve (later Colonel Shreve) built special boats designed to
remove snags from the Ohio, Mississippi, and Red rivers. In the days of
limited transportation this was as sound as was the work on inland harbors.

32 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

A good deal later navigation locks and dams were constructed, the stairway
of 26 locks and dams between St. Louis and St. Paul being an example. But
with improved overland transportation the public finally caught on—after
spending a thousand million dollars! Then the same bureaucrats discovered
the immense popularity of “flood control.” This shotgun wedding of navi-
gation and flood control had its inception in human misery. Not once has
it failed to capitalize on such misery, and not once has it alleviated a single
bit of it. Eventually this ‘‘flood control” got to be a little difficult to
swallow. When the figures were examined and the bombastic claims re-
viewed there was no control of floods and still less navigation. Then recrea-
tional facilities and even benefits to wildlife were included—both sound and
necessary developments until these proposals were examined.

As the old reasons wear out new ones must be found to justify the con-
tinual manipulation of our rivers. And to our dismay we find that the dam-
builders have just uncovered one of their greatest allies—electric power.
They now propose to install a turbine in each dam. This is part and parcel
of every project in Missouri even if the stream is so small that at times it
has no flow! Just mention hydroelectricity and all the little REA managers
grab a few chosen farmers, hop a train, and appear at the hearings in Wash-
ington. Even the past administration has fronted for them as in the case of
Table Rock, where a dam in Missouri was to be a source of power all of
which was to be available for a private corporation located across the state
line in Arkansas.

I have indicated that the river program as it has been carried on, first
under one name and purpose and then under another, has been a glorious bit

>

of “boondoggling” that we as taxpayers and all of us as Americans can ill
afford. It may not be necessary to cite the report, the paragraph, and the
page to prove how ill advised many of the projects have been—you may be
well aware of that. Here are a few samples. In 1930 General Brown of the
U. S. Corps of Engineers estimated that $50,000.00 would cover the dam-
ages chargeable to floods in the Meramec River; 19 years later they proposed
to spend over 45 millions for ‘‘flood control” and related “benefits” in that
same river system! Wapapello, completed in 1940, has been such a dismal
failure in doing the very thing it was engineered for that the downstream
farmers have petitioned its removal. Partly to correct the errors in that
comedy of errors, the Corps of Engineers has installed two immense pumps
to take water from the “‘protected” fields and put it back into the river!

At public hearings the Corps of Engineers is often paid homage to as
“the greatest body of engineers in the world.” But it has erred so mightily
in its chosen field that the Kerr Committee, investigating the Civil Works
program, pointed out that through “engineering errors” certain projects had

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 33

cost 502 per cent over estimates! The record is very much longer, and I
might cite a great many more instances. All are very much alike and all
show the same disregard for democratic principles and for the people who
are in the way. On the basis of that record, it would be national suicide to
allow any bureau to treat all our watersheds. There is no faster way of
destroying our irreplaceable resources and reducing the acreage which must
continue to produce more and more food.

If we are sincerely interested in controlling floods without destroying
ourselves as a nation, if we would alleviate the human misery which is the
aftermath of floods without destroying the agricultural and mineral resources
upon which all of us depend, if preservation and not ruination is our goal—
then there is another solution. The treatment of a river valley as a “‘water-
shed district” for the control of floods, for a sound agriculture, for recrea-
tion, and for the common good is not the visionary dream of an idealist.
It has been thoroughly tried in Ohio as the Muskingum Water Conservancy
District; in Oklahoma, as the Washita Valley Agricultural Flood Control
a little flood-control laboratory near

Project; in Missouri, on Brush Creek
Gray Summit. This is the democratic way: The project begins with the
circuit courts having jurisdiction in that valley. They appoint a Board of
Governors; elections are held; the proposed work must be justified, must be
paid for, and any mistakes lie on the doorstep of the officers who are residents
of the valley. In short, they must live with their plans and thus become
accountable for mistakes. This is the very antithesis of the present river
program where a bureaucrat a thousand miles away makes a decision, gets
his name cast in bronze on a concrete monument and moves on to greater
achievements. The bureaucrat is accountable to no one except his own
vanity. The Watershed District officers are required to account for their
program before their neighbors!

Snowdrops transplant best if they are moved when in full flower. The
practical consequence of this fact is that the only really effective way to
get a good clump started quickly in one’s garden is to get the plants from
some friend who has them doing well in his garden. This in turn means
that snowdrops tend to be restricted to the gardens of people who are not
only good gardeners but who have plenty of friends. Somehow this seems
peculiarly appropriate for such a brave and graceful little plant.

The open winter has brought more birds in the Garden than usual. Two
robins have been feeding in the Garden all winter and were joined in January
by a small flock. A white-throat sparrow has come to one of the feeding
stations every day, and a mocking bird and a song sparrow have been seen
occasionally.

34 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

SHOULDN’T WE TRY HYBRID QUAIL ALONG WITH
HYBRID CORN?

AUGUST P. BEILMANN

During the past decade we have witnessed a tremendous increase in the
productivity of our agricultural lands—an increase that has exceeded the
fondest hopes of those concerned with the food supply of our country.
When we recall that warnings of a rising population and a dwindling food
supply were issued long ago and that the solution then seemed far away, the
recent gigantic increase of food per acre is very comforting. Of course, the
very favorable market has been helpful; farmers have done everything pos-
sible to make money, and the government has virtually guaranteed a satis-
factory market for all that could be produced. However, the lure of making
money would not have accomplished the result we have observed. Machinery
which stretched the labor of a man helped, but few farmers were able to
double the acreage of their operations. What then was responsible for the
phenomenal increase of food production per acre? No small measure is due
to improved strains and varieties of nearly all farm crops. The national
average production of corn per acre is about 40 bushels, but no ‘“‘corn
contest”? entrant has a chance unless his yield is almost four times as great.
The “impossible” goal of 200 bushels per acre has been achieved, and the
sights have been set for 300 bushels! ‘The increased yield is not restricted to
just one crop; nearly every product has undergone the same transformation

even chickens and turkeys!

Why do we now get so much more per acre? Aside from other con-
tributing factors, the increase is due primarily to the fact that these crops
have now been tailored and stream-lined for increased productivity. You
no longer just plant soybeans—you now plant a specific kind suitable for
the region and the soil on which you hope to grow it. No one just plants a
corn crop. He plants a particular variety which has been bred for a specific
territory. In fact, the most successful corn-grower might give as much
thought to the ancestry of a variety as any cattle-breeder gives to the blood
lines of his herd sire. The recent improvement of the castor bean, one of
the most dramatic and least publicized crop stories, demonstrates what can
be done. In the 1880’s castor beans were a cash crop in some parts of Okla-
homa, Kansas, and Missouri. Other more profitable and less labor-consuming
crops forced it out of the picture. But modern industry had become so
dependent on importations of castor oil that a crisis developed when imports
were shut off during World War Il. The shortage became so serious that
tremendous sums of money were spent and heroic efforts made to grow the

plant on the farms from which it had disappeared. Under the impetus en-

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 35

gendered by need, the problem was placed in the hands of plantsmen who,
after searching the world for seed sources, began to select and hybridize.
To-day the castor bean is again a cash crop in Oklahoma and Kansas. To
accomplish this the plant had to be tailored to fit modern American agri-
culture, and machinery had to be devised to fit its peculiar requirements. In
about ten years a lost crop was found, tailored by selection and hybridizing,
and put back on the farm!

What has all this to do with quail? Just this—if breeding and selection
can so successfully solve problems of food and industrial oils, why should it
not be tried with our game birds? One might point to the growth of the
broiler business, the development of apartment-sized turkeys, the production-
line raising of pheasants and even ducks. It is admitted that all of these
birds are being raised for the butcher and not for the gunner. However,
even quail are relatively (?) easy to grow after brood stock is selected through
several generations. But the basic principles remain the same—we can grow
finer hybrid corn, special kinds of turkeys, not just hogs but “bacon”’ pigs,
and cattle with little resemblance to their ancestors when imported half a
century ago.

In the anticipation that superior qualities could be fixed after sufficient
experimental work had been done, what would be needed to begin the selec-
tion and finally the hybridizing of quail? Could we look toward producing
a bird equally as sporting as any we know now—one quite prolific, perhaps
longer-lived and exhibiting outstanding adaptability, a variety able to thrive
in the narrowed range following intense farming and able to hold its own
in congested districts? Perhaps we are looking for a paragon among quail—
but paragons have been developed in our farm crops, our poultry, and our
cattle. Why not spend some effort on this problem? The alternative is
additional restrictions and reduced bag limits.

The first step in any breeding program is locating a homogenous species,
one whose transmissible characters appear “fixed.” Often such fixation is
accomplished only after many generations of inbreeding, and results are
predictable only when traits are firmly “fixed.” This might seem an insur-
mountable obstacle, but it is not. Scattered through the Middle West are
some quail populations whose range has become so restricted that they have

€

become “inbreds” to the point where they may be said to be a special race.
One such population can be found within the stone wall of the Garden.
Here on an “oasis” of less than 75 acres a quail range has been formed
through the growth of the city. Once the birds raised in the Garden might
have moved outside during the usual fall covey “‘shuffle,’ but for the past

twenty-five years they have had no opportunity to mix with other birds;

36 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

they are a race apart, an inbred line. This has certainly happened in other
large cities and perhaps even in smaller towns where the buildings and the
topography have combined to isolate a few coveys and prevent their mixing
with other quail. These are the “inbreds” which might become the founda-
tion of a quail-breeding program. A few individuals from each locality
should be trapped and mated to birds of similar background from other areas,
or even to pen-reared birds. The extent and the mechanics of a breeding
program will depend upon the number of birds available through trapping
and the number of isolated coveys which can be found.

Until sufficient experimental work has been done we cannot tell if there
has been a segregation of transmissible characters of value in a quail-breeding
program. But isolated coveys that can successfully maintain themselves
through twenty-five generations might be expected to have the adaptability
needed by all quail to-day. Those birds, bringing off a brood within inches
of a busy walk and whose feeding hours are sharply curtailed by passing
traffic, would seem to furnish ample proof of rapid adjustment to environ-
ment. Cover restoration, through plantings of lespedeza and multiflora roses,
is certainly of great value to those quail that remain in a particular locality.
But, since we shall not be able to turn the clock back a half-century to the
cover and endless birds of that time—shouldn’t we try a hybrid quail?

CATTLEYAS MAKE EXCELLENT HOUSE PLANTS!
JOHN NEWTON SCATCHERD

I wonder why it is that people make such a “Federal case” out of attempts
to grow orchids as house plants. It can and is being done without too much
trouble. As I write this, I can see my plants sitting on my bedroom window-
sill and growing strongly, some with two growths on single-lead plants.
And I am no expert, only a “determined amateur” with about a year and a
half of experience in raising the “Queen of Flowers.”

Since I live in an apartment located in a suburb of St. Louis, I naturally
have “ideal” conditions for Cattleya growing:

(1) Relative humidity of from 2 to 30 per cent. (My gauge shows 8
per cent at present, which is about average. )

(2) Temperatures in the middle and upper nineties almost all this past
summer, with several days over 100° F., dropping to between 75 and 85° at
night. Commercial growers around here lost some valuable hybrids because
of these terrific temperatures. I was lucky, I guess. Didn’t lose any.

"After the special “Orchids-for-Amateurs” number of the BULLETIN had gone to press in
November, one of the St. Louis amateur orchidologists turned in a most interesting article on

Cattleyas as house plants. It has so much down-to-earth information for the average
gardener that we are publishing it in this number.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN a7

(3) In the winter the temperature may go from 90° on a bright day
down to 45° at night. We receive no heat after about nine o’clock in the
evening. I usually move the plants away from the window on really cold
nights.

(4) The plants being placed on a south window-sill in my bedroom, they
are provided with bright sunshine from about 11 o’clock in the morning on.
The window is about 3% feet wide and 5 feet high, and has a vertical screen
covering one-half of it.

I have eight mature Cattleya plants (two C. Mossiae, one C. Trianae, one
C. Bowringiana, one C. labiata, one C. Lueddemanniana, one Laeliocattleya
“C, W. Powell,” and one unknown hybrid). As far as Iam able to tell, none
of them appear to be longing for the ‘“‘conditions” most growers recommend
for orchids. They look just as tough and green and healthy as any in a green-
house, and the leaves and bulbs are of comparable size. Probably I shall never
win a First Class Certificate or even a Vote of Thanks for my efforts, but I
am having a great deal of fun proving to my own satisfaction that it is
possible to grow and flower orchids on a window-sill.

So, if I may, I should like to list my recommendations for raising them
at home:

(1) Give them all the sunlight you possibly can. This is exceedingly
important. It is the only way to insure tough, thick, broad leaves, fat,
sturdy bulbs and flowers. A screen is excellent protection against burning
the leaves. Oddly enough, my worst burning problem comes in October and
November. The lower angle of the sun at this time of the year causes it to
shine more directly on the plants.

(2) Give them plenty of water, especially during active growth. Watch
the roots and fiber closely and never let them dry out completely. You may
have to water one or two of them every day. From those big leaves and that
open fiber an amazing amount of water is evaporated. Keep on watering
until the growth is matured (hardened). The leaf and bulb on a new
Cattleya growth will be fairly soft and pliable until the growth decides it’s
finished; then suddenly the leaf becomes as stiff and tough as a leather belt
and the bulb almost as hard as a bone. If you have not supplied sufficient
water up to this point, you are going to end up with a miserably small bulb.
After the growth hardens, it’s too late. Of course, it is always possible that
a plant will break a new “eye” from the hardening growth and keep right
on growing. If this happens, you will have to continue watering as before.
If not, just give the plant enough water to keep it from shrivelling—prob-
ably a light watering once or twice a week until the plant blooms.

(3) Feed them occasionally while they are in active growth. (I use
one-half teaspoon of ““Hyponex”’ to a gallon of water.) This feeding enables

38 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

them to take more direct sunlight without burning, gives them more vigor
to withstand the home conditions, and helps make each new growth larger
‘than the one before. I am also experimenting with an organic fertilizer.
It is a sort of “beer” made by steeping shredded oak leaves in water. Place
about 16-20 oak leaves in an open jar filled with a gallon of water; let
stand for about three days; then strain off che liquid and apply it to the
plants. Its effect on seedlings is remarkable!

(4) Generally speaking, I find spraying to be a waste of time and effort.
One can soak the leaves on a warm day and five minutes later they will be
bone-dry. Obviously, anyone who works for a living cannot keep up with
this all day long, so I dispensed with it almost entirely. Adequate watering
will take care of the plants’ needs. If the bulbs shrivel a bit on a hot day,
they will fill up again on a cloudy or cooler one. Again I say, watch the
plants! Study them closely and learn their individual growth habits; and
occasionally wipe the dust off the leaves with a damp cloth. They seem to.
like it.

(5) I think a generous sprinkling of patience helps a great deal. Orchids
are slow growers at best, and the difference in the amount of light they
receive in a home where there is only “side” light as compared to that in a
greenhouse which has “all-over” light sometimes makes a difference of as
much as two months in the blooming time of a particular plant. One of my
plants, C. Mossiae, flowered in early April when I first bought it, and the
next year it did not flower until the middle of June.

(6) Last, but not least, it is very important to select strong-growing,
free-flowering, mature plants for one’s window-sill efforts. C. Mossiae and
C. Trianae (large variety) are probably the most reliable, the toughest, the
cheapest and among the prettiest. The beginner may tinker with them
almost to his heart’s content and they will not become too annoyed. I
divided C. Mossiae in April when I thought it was not going to bloom. As
mentioned above, it bloomed in June anyway. Both the front and back
bulbs have completed their new growth since then. Oddly enough, the back
bulbs have done all their new growing on my living-room (north) window-
sill where they get bright daylight but no direct sunlight.

In closing, | would like to say that one can go to all the orchid shows in
the world and still noc get the “little glimpse o’glory” that comes from
seeing an orchid in bloom in one’s own home. There is nothing in the
average house to compare with the magnificent, iridescent coloring of these
beautiful flowers. And with a little care and patience, you can have them,

too.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 39

OUR SELF-PRUNING PERSIMMON
HARRY R. SKALLERUP

During the winter, if anyone casts a second glance at a persimmon tree
(Diospyros virginiana L.) he does so, perhaps, to spy its legendary marsupial
companion, the possum. More than likely he will not see a little beast sitting
in every persimmon tree, but assuredly on each tree, near the tips of coarse
bare branches, a silhouette of feathery twigs will be seen. And upon the
ground, more twigs—most of them two years old—reveal an interesting
habit of the persimmon, namely, that it “prunes itself.” From observations
it was found that some of the lateral twigs are shed after the first year,
most after the second, and some during succeeding years, while a very few
remain to become the stark secondary branches of the tree. If the above
“pruning” pattern were diagrammed, a four-year-old branch would appear
somewhat as in fig. 1, with the feathery one-year-old twigs much in evi-
dence. Figure 2, in contrast, shows how the same branch would look if

“self-pruning” did not occur.

Fig. 1 Fig. 2

40 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Other trees, such as poplars, some elms, and oaks, also eliminate their
superfluous branches by pruning themselves. Commonly, the branches of
these trees are dropped in a manner that is essentially the same as the way
leaves are shed from a tree in autumn. At the joint or node of the branch
and stem a structurally weaker layer of wood, which serves as the point of
breakage, is formed early in the life of the branch. Depending upon the
species of tree, the smaller branch may separate at this zone at any time
from one to twenty years after its formation. After the branch drops, the
scar it leaves on the stem is subsequently sealed over by the tissue that forms
the bark of the tree. This phenomenon is known botanically as abscission,
and the term is used to refer to the above type of shedding of leaves,
branches, and the floral parts.

When the persimmon is planted as a fruit tree, its self-pruning nature
reduces the amount of actual pruning and thinning necessary, and, together
with lateness of growth in spring, practically assures a heavy crop of fruit.

UPLAND CRESS IN THE HOUSE AND IN THE
VEGETABLE GARDEN
EDGAR ANDERSON

This is a good time of year to grow a little Upland Cress on the window-
sill to add a fresh note to salads and sandwiches. Upland Cress is a weedy
little plant in the mustard family which grows in ordinary garden soil but
tastes almost exactly like water-cress. In England it is sprouted over water,
and the sprouted seedlings are sold in bulk to be used in making thin bread-
and-butter sandwiches. One of the simplest ways to grow it in the home is
to fill a soup bowl half full of sphagnum moss or shredded paper towel or
some such material, soak it with water, and then scatter the seeds on top.
In ten days the bright green little seedlings will be two or three inches high
and ready to harvest. One such bowl will make enough cress for about four
sandwiches. The seeds can be purchased in small packets at any large seed
store and are sometimes marketed in specialty shops under various trade
names.

Though seldom grown in this country, Upland Cress makes a good salad
plant for St. Louis vegetable gardens. It forms feathery tufts of foliage
which can be used from the time they are a few inches high until they reach
up to a foot or so and start to bloom. Upland Cress does not seem to mind
our frequent spells of hot dry weather which are so devastating to many
European salad plants. While it will not last until mid-summer it can, for
several weeks, make a pleasant addition to tossed salads. If your garden is
a small one, try sowing cress between the tomato plants just after they have
been set out. It grows so quickly that it will be harvested and out of the
way before the tomatoes are large enough to take up all the room in between.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 41

Book REvIEws.—

Philippine Orchids. By Reg S. Davis and Mona Lisa Steiner. 270 pp.
William Frederick Press, 313 W. 35th Street, New York 1, N. Y. 1953.
$5.00.

This comprehensive book by two orchid enthusiasts illustrates more than
one hundred Philippine orchids. They were photographed in Manila when
in bloom, many of them in Mrs. Steiner’s own garden. There are short
introductory chapters on the geography and the climates of the Philippines
with a climate map and actual meteorological data for five localities. There
is a chapter on the teratology of orchids, a short account of the introduced
species most frequently met with in the Philippines, a glossary, and a compre-
hensive index. The illustrations are accompanied by short descriptions, notes
on the history of each variety discussed, and remarks as to their behavior
under cultivation, with advice as to potting media and watering schedules.
As might be expected, a good portion of the book is given over to Dendro-
bium, Phalaenopsis, and Vanda but over forty other genera are illustrated.
Any orchid enthusiast who is trying to grow these beautiful Philippine species
will find that this volume comes as close to answering his most urgent
questions as one might hope to do with so large a subject in less than 300
pages.—E. A.

Flora of Western Australia. Vol. I, part 1. Gramineae. By C. A.
Gardner. 400 pp. Perth, 1952.

Some new books deserve a review because they are of very general
interest; occasionally there appears a volume which almost demands atten-
tion for precisely the opposite reason. This monograph on the grasses of
Western Australia is worth writing about because scarcely a single reader of
the BULLETIN will want to own a copy. [Yet it is the kind of a book
which makes one proud to be a human being; it is the kind of a book which
it is the business of this BULLETIN to help its readers appreciate. ]

Grasses are one of the chief natural resources of Western Australia and
the country apparently appreciates the fact; at least the foreword to the
volume is written by the Premier himself. Some hundreds of kinds of grasses
are native there, and others have been introduced; 127 genera of them are
recognized in this menograph. Yet it is no volume for the general public.
If the essential facts with regard to Western Australia’s grasses are to be
distilled into one book, all discussion and description must be stripped to the
bone. Grasses are a whole world in themselves; those who would understand
them must master the simple but precise technica] botanical shorthand which
tells the most in the least space. Open the book at random. You will find
some such phrase as “Spikelets gaping. Glumes subequal, acuminate, entire

42 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

or sub-dentate, the apices hyaline.” This is the stuff the book is made of,
technical descriptions, technical keys, over 100 simple line drawings dia-
gramming the most important species, an occasional phrase or two about
the importance or interest of a particular grass.

It is dry, distilled scholarship. The author has been a field botanist for
the Western Australian government for thirty years. He has himself col-
lected many of the facts on which his monograph is based. He has himself
drawn many of the illustrations. Decades of work have been compressed
into a few hundred pages to put the essential facts about grasses in Western
Australia where anyone who needs this basic information can put his hands
on it. Make no mistake; it is an important book. Multiplication tables are
dry stuff but the world’s business depends upon them. Grasses are funny
kinds of plants without spectacular flowers but they clothe the land. They
are the basis of our national economies. They are daily becoming more
dominant over the earth’s surface. Biologically, it might be more correct to
refer to the present time as the Age of Grasses rather than the Age of Man.
The author understands these matters though he has had neither time nor
space to write much about them in this volume. However, in a bare five
pages of foreword he has a few telling paragraphs. ‘‘We are prone,” says he,
“to regard our natural assets as something available to us for immediate use,
but it should be remembered that agricultural and pastoral practice without
husbandry, is comparable with mining, and that uncontrolled exploitation
with its attendant evils may lead to the conversion of valuable country into

desert.” —E. A. :

Old bricks from the boiler house at the Garden are being used to pave
some of the paths and a small area opposite the west entrance in the Palm
House. It provides a foreground from which the palm collection can be

viewed to advantage.

Slippery Elm branches force readily in the house and make a more inter-
esting bouquet than one might imagine. The flower buds are much larger
than those of the common elm and a bright rusty brown. The actual flowers
are little more than bunches of stamens but they are interesting to watch

and lend an air of spring to the living-room.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 43

For Sate: Papers By Dr. GEorGE ENGELMANN.—In cleaning out an
old cupboard a bundle of reprints of several papers by this pioneer St. Louis
botanist was found, and they are being offered for sale to the general public.
One of them, “Revision of the Genus Pinus and Description of Pinus
Elliottiv’? (from Trans. Acad. Sci. St. Louis. Vol. 4. 1880), is of folio size.
It comprises some 29 pages of text and includes three black-and-white litho-
graphs showing pine foliage and cones. Though technical in nature the
plates are large and clear and would make interesting pictures for the hall-
way of a country home. This reprint is priced at one dollar, post paid.

The other reprints are of short papers also from the Transactions of the
St. Louis Academy, and such illustrations as they have are of purely tech-
nical interest. They are priced at twenty-five cents each. There are five
papers in all, two of them being bound together, as follows:

Heavy Rains at St. Louis. Trans. Acad. Sci. St. Louis, vol. 2, pp. 266—
267. 1867.

Remarks on Viburnum and Cornus. Bound with above, pp. 269-271.

The Flowering of Agave Shawii. Trans. Acad. Sci. St. Louis, vol. 3,
pp. 579-582. 1877.

The American Junipers of the Section Sabina. Trans. Acad. Sci. St.
Louis, vol. 3, pp. 584-592. 1877.

A Synopsis of the American Firs. Trans. Acad. Sci. St. Louis, vol. 3,
pp. 593-602. 1878.

Our short note in the November BULLETIN on the general uselessness of
horse-chestnuts has prompted one of our readers to copy off for us the
following quotation from a thrifty Frenchman who raised a similar query
over 150 years ago.

“T remember my having read, many years ago, several grave dissertations on the
manner of employing the horse chesnut as food for cattle. Every Academy in Europe
has, at least, proposed that the horse-chesnut was useless, unless prepared by a very
expensive process, and that, even then, it was good only in the manufacture of tapers
and hair-powders. I was astonished at this: not that Naturalists should be ignorant
of it’s use, and that they had studied it merely as an article of luxury, but that
Nature should have produced a fruit of no use even to the brute creaticn. But I was
at last cured of my ignorance, by the brutes themselves. I happened to take my
walk, one day, to the Bois de Boulogne, with a branch of the horse chesnut in my
hand, when I perceived a goat feeding. I went up, and amused myself with stroking
her. As soon as she perceived the horse chesnut bough, instantly she seized, and
snapped it up. The lad who tended her told me, that the goats were all very fond of
this plant, and that it contributed greatly to the increase of their milk. I perceived,
at some distance, in the chesnut alley, which leads to the Chateau de Madrid, a herd
of cows eagerly looking for horse chesnuts, which they greedily devoured, without
sauce or pickle. Thus, our learned and ingenious systems conceal from us natural
truths, with which every peasant is acquainted.”

(From “Studies of Nature,” by James-Henry-D, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. p. 21. Trans-
lated by Henry Hunter. London, 1801. Printed for J. Mawman (Successor to Mr. Dilly)
in the Poultry.)

44 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN
NOTES

Mr. A. P. Beilmann, Manager of the Arboretum, has been reelected
president of the St. Louis chapter of the Friends of the Land.

Dr. Hermann von Schrenk, for over forty-five years Pathologist to the
Garden, died on January 30. His association with the Garden began in
1896 when he was a graduate student in the Henry Shaw School of Botany
of Washington University. A biographical sketch of Dr. von Schrenk will
appear in the next issue of the BULLETIN.

An anonymous gift has made it possible to establish a Museum of Eco-
nomic Plants at the Garden. It is being housed in the Old Museum building
just inside the Cleveland Avenue gate and is now open to the public, except
when the auditorium is in use by any of the local societies which meet there.
Dr. Hugh C. Cutler, a former graduate of the Henry Shaw School of Botany,
will be in charge of the Museum as Curator of Economic Plants. He comes
to us from the Chicago Museum of Natural History (formerly known as
the Field Museum) where he has been Curator of Economic Botany.

The annual Orchid Show at the Garden was opened to the public on
Sunday, February 1, and will continue throughout the month. The principal
features are a terrace garden of Cypripediums from the Brownhurst collec-
tion and a large central area of massed Cymbidiums in shades of brown,
beige, and pink. At both sides are open-work display cabinets containing
English Slipper Orchids (Cypripediums) and specimen plants of Cattleya
hybrids. The technical problem of staging Moth Orchids and Pitcher Plants
has been solved in a novel fashion by hanging them from simple gilt trellises
against panels of pale pink. As a result, the individual plants are shown to
perfection, yet the display gives a pleasing over-all effect and does not look
spotty. This year’s Orchid Show contains 5,000 plants, the largest number
ever exhibited here.

THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Richard J. Lockwood... o : wees -eee------------President
BO APO Be ORO iat ee nce ea __....... Vice-President
Eugene Pettus -----.---.-.--.------.--- _ Second Vice-President

Dudley French George T. Moore

Henry Hitchcock A. Wessel Shapleigh

John S. Lehmann Ethan A. H. Shepley

Robert Brookings Smith

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS

Arthur H. Compton_. bs Chancellor, Washington University
Uf) 1, We OF | Renan ee Mayor of the City of St. Louis
Stratford L. Morton... _ President, St. Louis Academy of Science
Arthur C. Lichtenberger eee Bishop of the Diocese of Missouri
James Fitzgerald Re _ President, Board of Education of St. Louis
Gerad Ulrich. a... Seeaeeeperieetiaines eee scan _a---a-o--e ECKEtAry
STAFF
GOO Rs NOONE se i airtel Ea had ie Director
Ba CLIN cc a hc area eee Assistant Director
Carroll W. Dodge... _ Mycologist
Robert. 6. w o0dson, fre en ee Curator of Herbarium
Henry N. Andrews. ....._.-... OM Mere ie eet
en | age Daag 0 ag) | RAO ee ee ee Assistant Curator of Herbarium
Hugh C. Cutler rere Curator Museum of Economic Plants
George B. Van Schaack_____.... Honorary Curator of Grasses
Julian A. Steyermark spcbnes eeseeess __..._Honorary Research Associate
Nell C. Horner. ne -- Librarian and Editor
rT G BLU 5 | a ee oe eee mes ___....._... Business Manager
Ser Ee a senescence et DORE PEN eN S
SEL ID: Oe 0 | ee enOmeMer rae Cote ini sa! 1:
Ladislaus Cutak Setar ile senses Horticulturist in charge of Conservatories
Frederick G. Meyer-.- --..--. jigsnceedaveiseteca _ Dendrologist
DN a ecelecca ee _a--+--0------- Engineer
Adeust Po Denman ce een Manager of the Arboretum, Gray Summit
Otis Gare POIVIN CE eae nr Assistant Manager of the Arboretum
iG: Re Lowry... _..._In charge of Orchids

Paul H. Allen - _..Tropical Plant Collector

SOME FACTS ABOUT THE GARDEN

The Missouri Botanical Garden was opened to the public by Mr.
Henry Shaw about 1860. From that date until his death in 1889 it
was maintained under his personal direction. Although popularly
known as “Shaw’s Garden” the name Missouri Botanical Garden
was chosen by Mr. Shaw and he definitely indicated that he wished
it called by that name. The Garden passed at his death into the
hands of a Board of Trustees, designated in Mr. Shaw’s will, and
the Board so constituted, exclusive of certain ex-officio members,
is self-perpetuating. By a further provision of the will the immedi-
ate direction of the Garden is vested in a Director, appointed by
the Board. The Garden receives no support from city or state but
is maintained almost exclusively from the estate left by Henry
Shaw. Since 1939 many Garden Clubs and interested individuals
have contributed to a ‘Friends of the Garden Fund” which is used
in developing the new Arboretum, located at Gray Summit, Mo.
The Arboretum (1) serves as a source of plants, trees and shrubs
for the city Garden; (2) affords areas for gradually establishing
a pinetum, a wild-flower reservation and various other features
on a scale not possible in the city; (3) provides greenhouses for

some 50,000 orchid plants.

The city Garden comprises 75 acres, where about 12,000 species
of plants are grown, both out of doors and under glass. It is open
every day in the year except New Year’s Day and Christmas; week
days, 8:00 a. m. until 7:00 p. m.; Sundays, 10:00 a. m. until 7:00
p.m. The greenhouses are closed every day at 5:00 p. m.

The main entrance to the Garden is at Tower Grove and Flora
Place, on the Sarah bus line (No. 42). The Southampton buses
(No. 80), direct from downtown, pass within three blocks of the

main entrance.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL
GARDEN BULLETIN

CONTENTS
Pepper and Salt, Our Earliest Wild Flower
Pin Oak Yellows “Flora Monacensis”’
The Coyol Palm as a Beverage Tree Lindheimer’s Letter to Dr. Engelmann
Hermann von Schrenk (1873-1953) Saint-Hilaire’s “Flora Brasiliae”

Notes

Volume XLI March, 1953 Number 3

Cover: Coyol Palm before being uprooted.

Office of publication: 306 E. Simmons Street, Galesburg, Illinois.

Editorial Office: Missouri Botanical Garden, 2315 Tower Grove Avenue,
St. Louis, 10, Missouri.

Published monthly except July and August by the Board of Trustees of the
Missouri Botanical Garden. Subscription price: $2.50 a year.

Entered as second-class matter January 26, 1942, at the post-office at Gales-
burg, Illinois, under the Act of March 3, 1879.

Please: Do not discard a copy of the Bulletin. If you have no further use for yours
pass it along to a friend or return it to the Garden. Return postage will
be guaranteed.

Missour1 Botanical
Garden Bulletin

Vol. XLI MARCH, 1953 No. 3

PEPPER AND SALT, OUR EARLIEST WILD FLOWER
EDGAR ANDERSON

It is appropriate that this account of one of our commonest wild flowers
should be without any illustration. Because of its peculiar mode of bloom-
ing no picture does it justice, and most of those which have been attempted
are positively misleading. Pepper and Salt is just coming into flower as this
number of the BULLETIN goes to press and it will remain in flower for several
weeks, but it comes out so early and is so hidden in the leaves that few
Missourians have ever noticed it.

Pepper and Salt is the common name by which it is known to country
children. Books refer to it as Harbinger-of-Spring, and for purposes of
scientific precision it has the official scientific name of Erigenia bulbosa.
Pepper and Salt is a good name for it, particularly when it first comes into
flower at the end of winter. It then looks almost exactly like a small gob
of mixed salt and pepper from a child’s lunchbox which had somehow fallen
on the dry leaves of the forest floor during a picnic. Closer examination
shows that it is a bunch of flowers and that it is not really black and white.
There are several small flowers set so closely together that the separate out-
lines are obscure. The petals are white, or nearly so, and in among them are
stamens so dark purple that they appear black to casual inspection. Tech-
nically, the plants belong to the Parsley family, and its flowers form a small
umbel with delicate pale green leaves beneath, something like those of a
young seedling carrot.

Pepper and Salt comes into bloom on sunny days in late winter and
pokes its head up here and there among the leaves of the forest floor. A
single flower head is seldom bigger than the nail of your little finger, and
since flowering begins right down among the leaves you have to have sharp
eyes to find the flowers when they first open. Even for those who know the
plant it is simplest to track it down about the time when it goes to seed and
is several inches high. Since it comes from a little underground bulb it
will appear in the same place year after year. Trying to find it at some

(45)

46 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

well-remembered spot, when you know it really must be there, is an amusing
game. You stand there, knowing that several plants are probably within
a few inches of your feet, and look sharply here and there among the dry
leaves. Sometimes when it grows abundantly on a slope and when the
blooms are far enough advanced to stick up a little above the leaves, the
flowers may catch the sunshine and be conspicuous. Then it is wonderful
in the bare spring woods, before other flowers are even hoped for, to come
upon a whole hillside of these delicate little blossoms and feel that another

spring is just around the corner.

PIN OAK YELLOWS
FREDERICK G. MEYER

Pin Oaks (Quercus palustris) in the St. Louis area and throughout the
eastern states are subject to a disagreeable condition known as Pin Oak
Yellows. This condition is due to iron chlorosis or to a non-availability of
iron in the soil. The normal amount of chlorophyll is not produced, which
causes the leaves of the affected trees to turn uniformly yellowish green, or
often only the veins remain green. The terminal growth of twigs is slight
and the trees are generally stunted and unhappy-looking. Pin Oaks thus
affected are greatly weakened, become subject to other diseases, and may
eventually die.

This sickly condition is an indication of an alkaline soil, and it may be
overcome by the addition of certain chemicals to the soil or by spraying the
leaves. The following chemicals will produce the most lasting results, but
should be applied to the soil in early spring (chemicals of agriculture grade
are cheap): a 50-50 mixture of ferrous sulphate and mist wettable sulphur
at the rate of 1 pound for each inch of trunk diameter. An even quicker
response may be obtained by substituting aluminum sulphate for half the
sulphur. About 10-20 holes should be made for each inch of trunk diameter.
Using a crowbar or some such tool they should be made about 18 inches
deep, at an angle towards the trunk.

For very quick response, but of less lasting results, spray the leaves during
late spring or early summer after the yellowing symptoms have become fully
apparent, with a solution containing 5 pounds of ferrous sulphate and 2
pounds of soy-bean flour in 100 gallons of water. An ordinary kitchen
detergent may be added as a wetting and spreading agent. For the home
gardener, the spray method is not as practicable as the soil application, be-
cause a high-pressure sprayer is essential for complete coverage, especially
with large trees. For smaller trees, though, an ordinary home tank-sprayer
will work. The response to greening after spraying is amazingly rapid, and
after two weeks the leaves will be green again.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 47

THE COYOL PALM

Mature tree ready for felling; young tree; bottle of Coyol wine corked with corn cob;
leaves stripped from trunk; “expert”? cutting trough in felled tree.

THE COYOL PALM AS A BEVERAGE TREE
GEORGE F. FREYTAG

Those of us who have been lucky enough to visit our neighbors to the
south are usually amazed by the variety of ways in which the palm family
enters into the life and traditions of these Latin American peoples. The Coyol
Palm, though a minor element of this great palm family, is encountered
in practically every little town and village in Central America. <A par-
ticularly beautiful group of these palms is the grove which surrounds the
school of tropical agriculture in El Zamorano, Honduras. It is here that
the author became acquainted with some of the palm’s uses.

The Coyol Palm (Acrocomia mexicana Karw.), which gets its popular
name from the Spanish word coyol, meaning ball, is used for a great many
purposes. Its fruits and the “‘cabbage” or growing apex are used for food,

its spines for needles, its leaves for fencing material, and its juice for a

48 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

beverage. This last is as typical and welcome to Latin Americans during
the hot dry season as is apple cider to the North Americans during the fall
and winter.

The season for Coyol wine, or “Vino de Coyol” in Spanish, is awaited
with eager anticipation by both young and old. By February many an old
vino lover will have scouted around, located, and made arrangements to
obtain a Coyol tree in order to assure a supply of the wine during the height
of the Easter festive season. During this time much of Central America is
truly suffering from an unbelievably hot, dry spell, often not a drop of rain
having fallen since November. Temperatures run from 90 to 100° F., so
that such a beverage really hits the spot. Perhaps it is this burning heat or,
as the Latin Americans think, the knowledge that the rains will begin to fall
during the succeeding month that makes the sap of the Coyol Palm collect
and concentrate in the trunk. It is at this time, and appropriate for the
festivities of holy week, that the Coyol may be made to yield its delectable
beverage.

The extraction of the juice is best done by an expert in order that the
flavor and quantity be of the highest, and it is for this reason that the palms
are secured so long in advance. The location and procurement of specimen
trees may cost as much as ten dollars, which is a good deal considering the
means of these people and the fact that the tree may be rendered useless by
any one of a number of subsequent steps. First, the tree must be felled when
the moon is just right (so the saying goes); this can be best judged and done
by our “expert.” Great care must be taken that no damage is done to the
crown for it is this region that will yield the wine. If the crown is damaged,
fermentation or insects may ruin it for later tapping. The tapping is done
by excavating a small trough in the tip of the trunk. This should not be
done immediately the tree is felled for once again the moon must play its
part. When the palm has been carefully trimmed of its leaves the next step
is to cart it to the extraction locale (usually the backyard of the “expert”
who may run the local saloon and thus specialize in such matters) where it
is laid out in line with numerous other palms giving the place a strong re-
semblance to a morgue or perhaps an alligator farm. Finally, the propitious
time having arrived, the growing crown or cabbage of the palm is so cut
as to leave a 5-inch rectangular trough in the trunk near the upper end
where it is just large enough to permit such a cavity. This is usually just
slightly below the base of the last-formed leaf and is very hard to locate even
by our “expert,” being hidden by sheathing leaf bases, spines, and miscel-
laneous fibrous material.

Immediately the cut is made the juices flowing from the lower regions
of the trunk begin to fill the trough. Flow usually stops after some eight to

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 49

ten hours and thus new cuts of the flowing surface must be made daily. The
initial cutting and each daily trimming of the flowing side of the trough
must be made early in the morning so that the trough may be periodically
emptied for the waiting public during the day. Collection hours are at
10 A. M., noon, and at 4 P.M. Early collections are partaken of by young
ladies while the habituals and those who like their wine with a “kick”
choose the later hours when fermentation is quite advanced. It is not un-
common that these later drinks may cause drunkenness.

Fermentation sets in rather rapidly for the fresh juice is very sweet.
Coyol wine has a flavor such as might be obtained by mixing the familiar
cocoanut juice with a strong solution of baker’s yeast, then adding a dash
of freshly pressed sugar-cane squeezings and allowing the whole to ferment
slightly. At its best it is a very pleasant drink with an attractive bluish-
white almost transparent appearance and the refreshing flavor of a naturally
carbonized drink. Because of the speed with which this fermentation takes
place all transportation of the wine is done with the greatest care. If the
wine is not consumed on the spot (the recommended procedure) it is usually
put into a bottle with a few grains of corn. Bubbles continually arise from
the corn which serves as a stirring mechanism preventing the accumulation
of dissolved carbon dioxide or “fizz” of our modern carbonated beverages,
which might cause near-explosions when the bottle is jolted or shaken. The
bottle is corked by a piece of corn cob previously thrust into a fire to burn
off chaff, and pierced by a nail to allow the escape of gas. This fermentation,
if allowed to go to completion, forms a very potent vinegar which is made
even more potent and given a unique flavor by the addition of pieces of onion
and hot peppers.

Among the innumerable stories concerning the attributes of Coyol wine
is that told me by Don Abel Gamero, a distinguished college professor of
Central America. A friend of his who had led a normally healthy life until
middle age suddenly became stricken by an unknown disease. After seeking
aid from doctor after doctor without results, and having wasted away to
but a shadow of his former self, he turned in despair to the “home remedies.”
Yes, needless to say, the use of Coyol wine has made him the village strong
man, and as such he was pointed out to me. This is not told in jest for this
is the attitude of most Latin Americans in regard to this drink. Surely it is
that the fermentation could have provided just such a boost in vitamin con-
tent as might be needed to “balance” the diet of these people. Thus more
and more old wives’ tales are found to have an element of truth in them,
with the result that these stories now provide us with clues to direct us in

our further research.

50

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

HERMANN VON SCHRENK

Photographed October 29, 1935, at the “Old Field Bog,” Greencox, Mo.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 51

HERMANN VON SCHRENK (1873-1953)
AUGUST P. BEILMANN

The death of Dr. Hermann von Schrenk, on February 6, has deprived
the Garden of one of the oldest staff members in point of service. A grad-
uate of Cornell University in 1893, he received a master’s degree from
Harvard University the following year and his doctorate in plant pathology
from Washington University in 1898. He was Professor of Plant Pathology
in the Henry Shaw School of Botany, Washington University, from 1906
to 1913, and joined the Garden staff as Pathologist in 1907. He was the
first pathologist in charge of the Mississippi Valley Laboratory, Bureau of
Plant Industry, United States Department of Agriculture, and served until
this laboratory was combined with the newly formed Forest Service in 1907.

Dr. von Schrenk was a member (and in several instances an officer as
well) of many scientific and professional organizations. Among others, he
was a member of the National Research Council, Central States Forestry
Conference, American Society for Testing Materials, National Conservation
Conference, Academy of Science of St. Louis. In addition he had served as
president of the Audubon Society of Missouri, the Garden Club of St. Louis
and the Missouri Forestry Association. Largely through his efforts private
funds were obtained which permitted the appointment of the first State
Forester in Missouri. He initiated the International Toxicity Conference
and presided over the meeting which was held in 1930 in Berlin. Following
this he arranged for a Conference of Wood Technologists and Pathologists
which was held in April, 1931, at the Garden.

The solution of the problem of impregnating timber with creosote came
in 1904 during the St. Louis World’s Fair where, as Pathologist in charge of
the Mississippi Valley Laboratory, he had set up a demonstration of timber
treating. The proposed method quadrupled the useful life of timber so
treated and proved to be tremendously important to American railroads.
Through the years there were few projects involving the extensive use of
timber that did not lean heavily upon his knowledge of this subject. As a
timber consultant his services were much in demand and he wrote, or assisted
in writing, most of the specifications involving treated and untreated timber
which are in use to-day.

Arriving in Missouri as a young man, before the turn of the century, he
had the unique opportunity to study the forests in those very years when
Missouri logging reached a peak. Often an unwilling participant but always
an interested bystander, he saw the financial giants wrestle for railroad

right-of-way in the swamps of southeast Missouri. His deep interest in

52 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

trees, their diseases and the utilization problems of timber, were early recog-
nized, and he was furnished passes which allowed him to travel by railroad
at will. He was one of the last men to see and study the bleached trunks of
those trees which died after being submerged by the New Madrid earthquake.
His interest in this swamp—which supported the greatest stand of hardwoods
ever to grow in the United States—carried over into a number of court
cases involving disputed boundaries and claims arising from damages to trees.
His appearance in court was always an event. Frequently facing an array
of opposing talent of formidable proportions, the meticulous preparation for
his part of the testimony demonstrated the thoroughness and the extent of
his knowledge. One privileged to work with him during these tense situa-
tions came away with a reverential respect for his almost unlimited capacities.

He was not an easy taskmaster, nor was he especially patient with his
colleagues. Always intense, he tackled each problem as though nothing else
mattered. A firm believer in the evidence supplied by experimentation, many
of his projects were set up to be evaluated regularly through a period of
twenty or more years. An early user of the camera as a scientific tool, he
was able to illustrate almost any subject in his field from his photographic
files. He was also an ardent collector and amassed a tremendous collection
of tree specimens showing abnormalities of physiological interest and in-
vasions by pathogens. This collection was quite recently transferred to the
University of Minnesota, where it is filed in display cases in a special room
and known as the “von Schrenk Memorial.”

Hermann von Schrenk had a catholicity of interests. His writings
ranged from surveys of tornado damage to trees through all phases of wood
technology to life histories of obscure fungi and plant parasites. The von
Schrenk garden in the Florissant Valley was a mecca for serious plantsmen.
His enthusiasm for new species and varieties was shared by Mrs. von Schrenk,
and few seasons passed in which an imposing list of new things was not
undergoing trial. It was never difficult to arouse his enthusiasm if he felt
a project had some merit. On one occasion this led to an elaborate nutritional
study in which pigs were fed an assorted list of common weeds. Then con-
sidered a questionable innovation, it has since been given serious study in
animal nutrition research.

As a result of his travels, his work, and correspondence, he was known
wherever trees were grown o1 timber was used in construction. This led
to an offer in 1931 from the Russian Government which wished to secure
his services in setting up a forestry and wood preservation program. He was
offered a lifetime retainer if he would consult with the Russian foresters in
Moscow. He refused this offer, pointing out that so much remained to be

done in wood technology in this country.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 53

If it could be said that Dr. von Schrenk had a consuming interest in a
single tree it was the Cypress. He did much to call attention to the peculiar
qualities of this wood and he studied and photographed all the major forest
stands of cypress timber throughout the South from Florida to Mexico. No
other investigator knew Cypress half so well. Through his studies he became
intrigued with the variations which were encountered. To test the perma-
nence of such variability he had seed collected of all the known forms from
many southern stations. The seeds were grown at the Garden and the
seedlings were eventually set out at the Arboretum.

It is only fitting and proper that the group of Cypress now growing at
the Pinetum Lake should become a living memorial to Dr. Hermann von
Schrenk who spent a lifetime in the study of this tree. Through their
longevity they will remind future generations of the work of a great man
who was able to translate Science into terms of simple human needs and

services.

FLORA MONACENSIS,
A MEMORIAL TO DR. HERMANN VON SCHRENK

Shortly after Dr. von Schrenk’s death the Garden received a check from
the St. Louis Garden Club as a memorial to him with a suggestion that it
might be used in binding up books in one of the fields in which he was inter-
ested. It arrived just as Mrs. von Schrenk had turned over to the library a
set of fascinating old volumes which Dr. von Schrenk had placed on deposit
in the library nearly forty years ago. Although the plates were in excellent
condition they had come into Dr. von Schrenk’s possession in such condition
as to be virtually unbound; all these years they have been kept securely
wrapped in heavy brown paper and have been consulted only under dire
necessity. The check from the St. Louis Garden Club will make it possible
to bind them up functionally, if not handsomely, in four large volumes.
The books take on added interest from the circumstance that the author,
Franz von Paula von Schrank, came from the same part of Europe as did
Dr. Hermann von Schrenk’s ancestors, and in spite of the slightly different
spelling of the name he may have belonged to the same family. The volumes
had apparently been in the library of Dr. von Schrenk’s father, a distin-
guished educator in one of the classical ‘““Akademies” formerly maintained
in this country by intellectual German-American families.

The ‘Flora Monacensis” is one of those sumptious works produced during
the period when science was largely carried on under royal and aristocratic
patronage. It is not only handsome and interesting, but its 400 plates are

still of technical scientific importance, made doubly so by the extreme rarity

54 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

of the volume in North American scientific libraries. Its full citation is as
follows:

Schrank, Franz von Paula von. Flera Monacensis seu plantae sponte circa
Monachium nascentes quas pinxit et in lapide delineavit Johannes Nepomecenus Mayr-
hoffer, commentarium perpetuum addidit Franciscus de Paula de Schrank. (Flora of
Munich or plants growing spontaneously in the environs of Munich which Johann
Nepomuk Mayrhoffer painted and engraved on stone; descriptions added by F. von
Paula von Schrank).—In 4 volumes grand folio, 2 portraits, one of Mayrhoffer, one
of von Schrank; 400 descriptive pages and 400 hand-colored lithograph plates of
plants (life size), 100 pages and plates to a volume. Vol. 1 (1811), 2 (1814),
3 (1816), 4 (1818). Printed in Munich.

The author of the Flora, Franz von Schrank, was born in Upper Austria,
two centuries ago, and after various posts as a University teacher and ad-
ministrator he finally settled down in charge of the Botanical Garden at
Munich where he died in 1835 at the age of 89. E. A.

A LETTER FROM TEXAS TO GEORGE ENGELMANN
ROLLA M. TRYON, JR.

In the February 1952 BULLETIN a brief note appeared on the discovery
of some misplaced correspondence and notes of George Engelmann. Of
particular interest was a series of letters from Ferdinand Lindheimer, the
most noted of early Texas botanists, who sent his specimens to Engelmann
for naming and distribution. These letters, written in German script and
illustrated with maps and sketches of botanical interest, appeared most diffi-
cult to decipher, for the pages are written on twice, once in the conventional
manner in black ink and crosswise to this in red ink. The BULLETIN note
brought us a most interesting communication from Lindheimer’s grand-
daughter, Mrs. Sida S. Martin, of San Antonio. Mrs. Martin generously
offered to translate the script with which she was familiar and she has sup-
plied the translation which follows. The map was drawn over the writing,
but in the accompanying illustration the script has been removed in the

process of reproduction.

Rec’d Nov. 27, -44 Industry, Texas
Ans. Dec. 8 —44 Oct. 19— 1844
Dear Friend:

Your last letter was dated Aug. 22 of this year and I received same in Sept. and

I answered it soon after receiving it or before the end of said month.

My two plant collections had not been received by you at that time. A. third
collection is ready and I will send same as soon as I hear from you that the previous
two have been received.

In my last letter I considered it advisable not to go to San Saba for the autumn,
however now I am becoming restless here. And I do not scem to be able to locate a
proper house for the winter. At this time I am thinking it is better to go, even
though I have no money, no clothes nor blankets. But I have a fine horse that can
endure hardships, and I have good guns and good health. Also 6 or 7 reams of paper.
In planning this undertaking and the necessary risks entailed, I will rely at first on
your help and the help of friends and realize full well that I must curtail all expenses.

55

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN
we
red OF A
: § Ff 7 fade tes? from Washin Ton at
N |
w 4
a

wong

RL YN, AN Cty er

e « ws
+ Sse

sy
&
SSeS
Re
za
oe ae
Lee, << A <F
PHQnTs om ay. on

Wak
‘FF ff or
a x ny
A ee

x
“=
2/
Lindheimer’s map of a portion of central Texas; San Antonio north to the San Saba

River. 1844.

56 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

I would like to give you an idea of this particular undertaking. It will require
all of my strength and energy. And I might be like the Frankfurt correspondent in
the Schnellpost (fast mail) when writing of the so-called Nobility Club (Adetsverein)
but I do not have the proper data at present and do not wish to becloud the issue
with when and if. But within a few days I will have the details for you.

Oct. 29:—Ten days later, and I still cannot give you any positive details regard-
ing my plant collections that are to be sent you nor about my expedition to the west.

I have made inquiry of Reis & Nichols regarding the two collections that were
sent but to date have received no answer. The third collection is now packed and
ready and I am rushing to get this my monthly report to the post in order not to
miss it.

But I have received no messages from you this menth. All of my last business
duties are completed and I am ready for the trip and my heart is beating fast with
impatience. I have no interest in the little issues that arise in a small close com-
munity for discussion, ;

The wings of my imagination are fluttering merrily in the free-born breezes of
the heavens and as the sail of the ship swells with proud impatience so swells my heart
at the prospect of the new and adventurous undertaking. Let the timid or the fear-
ful remain in their cabins or their tents, give me the freedom of the open road and
the pleasure of the saddle.

And now it seems again as though I were parting from you dear friend a second
time but before I go I will see to it that another letter is mailed to you.

The news about Lt. Fremont Expedition was recounted here in the local Papers.

In the year 1841 a German pharmacist by the name of Schimmelphennig spent
the summer near Victoria and Guadaloupe about 100 miles from here in a south-
westerly direction and collected plants and birds which he sent to Dresden and later
joined a trading party to go to Mexico.

At the same time with this letter I am sending the third collection of plants by
way of Houston, Reis & Nichols in Houston will then send this box to Messrs
Ruddecke Woods & Co. in New Orleans. And I asked these men to insure this box
for $100.00 and sent it by Mississippi River boat on to you.

The first collection I requested insured for $80 and the second for $30.

Mr. Sieper the merchant who is also the Postmaster here, was kind enough during
the summer to credit my needs for supplies.

When you send me the money you owe me I wish to ask you to arrange it in such
a manner that Mr. Siepers, who has signed this in his own handwriting, will be able
to draw his amount.

Also you may address all letters & communications to me here.

Your friend
F. Lindheimer

P.S. A physician Dr. Brickleffs asked me to inquire of you if there is an opening
in the U. S. Army or Navy for a physician. Please notify Mr. Siepers if you can
obtain any information on this matter.

[f you are feeding birds in your garden, water is even more attractive
than food, particularly during the winter season. One may use a heater to
keep it thawed but during open winters such as the present one it is quite
sufficient to use a small basin filling it with warm water and flushing it out
at noontime with hot water if need be. If the night bids fair to go well
below freezing, if the basin is emptied in the later afternoon or early evening

it will be simpler to take care of the next morning.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN Td

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
SAINT-HILAIRE’s ‘FLORA BRASILIAE MERIDIONALIS”’
NELL C. HORNER

In 1948 the Garden purchased from Bernard Quaritch, of London, a
folio edition of Auguste de Saint-Hilaire’s “Flora Brasiliae Meridionalis,” pub-
lished in 1825-1833. When the books arrived they proved even more
impressive than the catalogue had stated—three large volumes (13 % 20
inches) with beautiful calf binding lettered in gold, fine paper and printing,
and exquisite hand-colored plates of plants drawn life size and engraved on
copper. On checking the work with the bibliographic reference in Pritzel’s
“Thesaurus Literaturae Botanicae,” it agreed as to the folio size, the number
of colored plates, and the artists (plates in Vol. I by Turpinio; in Vols. II
and III by Delile) but disagreed in the following particulars:

Title-—The title in Pritzel was given as “Flora Brasilinae Meridionalis,”
but the » in Brasilinae was evidently a typographical error.

Volume I.—Pritzel lists this volume as having 395 pages, but ours had
only 305. He gives the date of publication as 1825, which is also the date
on the title-page at the beginning of our volume, but following page 132 in
ours is a second title-page and an avertissement page dated January 1827.
This title-page gives Adrien de Jussieu and Jacques Cambessedes as joint
authors, and in the avertissement Saint-Hilaire states that their assistance
is due to “alterations de ma santé” (my health).

Volume I1—Here again there was a difference in the number of pages,
our copy having 275 pages, while Pritzel’s had 381. The three authors
mentioned above are also authors of this volume.

Volume III.—This volume, according to Pritzel, has the pages numbered
from 1 to 160. However, ours was numbered as follows: 1-65, 66-70
unnumbered, 71—72 missing, 73-128. In our copy, pages 1-65 (1832) are
credited to the three authors, pages 73-128 (1833) to Saint-Hilaire alone.
Pritzel does not mention the authorship of this volume, and one would as-
sume that it was the same as for Volume II.

Now we were puzzled. Either Pritzel was referring to another edition,
although he listed only one (the folio with colored plates), or our set was
very incomplete. Quaritch wrote that we were supposed to have a perfect
set but they were unable to trace another folio set in any London library
with which to check it and “another such copy had not passed through their
hands in forty years.” However, one of their representatives checked a
quarto edition (having black and white plates) in the Royal Horticultural
Society library and reported that although the pagination differed, the first
and last words in all three volumes agreed with ours. Mrs. Lazella Schwarten,

58 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Librarian at the Arnold Arboretum, Boston, also checked our folio set
against their quarto, with the same results. Moreover, the pagination in
the quarto edition agreed with that in Pritzel. Presumably Pritzel had con-
fused the two editions for, except for the size and the plates being colored,
his description applies to the quarto edition.

In the midst of the controversy Dr. Rogers McVaugh, of the University
of Michigan, who happened to be visiting the Garden, asked to see Saint-
Hilaire’s “Flora of Brazil.” He had never seen a folio edition although he
had heard that there was one, and he suggested that we call the attention of
botanists to this rarity. He also told us that some bibliographers had almost
despaired of finding a reference to it. With this challenge we began a search
for bibliographic references to the work and we found one in Flora (Vol. 9,
no. 2, Beilage p. 96. 1826). Translated from the German it is as follows:

This Flora of Brazil will be for the eastern part of America what the Humboldt
& Kunth was for the west coast. The work will be in three volumes which will
appear in bi-monthly lieferungs. The first four lieferungs are finished. In quarto on
glossy Jesus paper with 8-10 black copper plates and 5 sheets of text. In folio on
glossy Jesus vellum paper from Annonay [a paper-manufacturing town in France]

with colored plates and 8 sheets of text. A prospectus describing the work is avail-
able at all bookdealers. Price 16 Rthl. 16 Gr. Sachs oder 30 FI. rhein.

Wilhelm Schafer
We do not know how much money the price given above represented,
but the value of the work (apparently the quarto edition) is given in Pritzel
(1872) as 360 fr. The following advertisement which appeared in Hooker’s
London Journal of Botany in 1842 suggests that the folio work was even at
that time becoming a rarity.

LIVRES NOUVEAUX
H. Balliére
219 Regent St., Lendon
AUGUSTE SAINT HILAIRE, Flora Brasiliensis, ou Histoire et Descriptiones de toutes
les plantes qui croissent dans les differentes provinces du Bresil. This beautiful
work was published in 24 livraisons, forming three volumes, grand 4to, with 192

engraved plates. 7 £. 10s, The last livraisons should be furnished at the price of
15 s each,

There are some copies, 3 volumes in large folio, velin paper, with illustrations colored
and retouched with a “pinceau,” 25 £—The plates having been destroyed and
possessing only a very few copies of this magnificent work, I can supply at this
low price for only a short time. [Translation]

Thinking that the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, in Paris, would
surely have a copy of this French work we wrote to them for information.
Following is a free translation of the answer received from Mme. Melle
Madier, the librarian:

Herewith are the facts that I have collected on “Flora Brasiliae Meridionalis”
de Saint-Hilaire.

This work was published by Belin, at Paris, in parts, beginning in 1824, and in
two formats: in —4° and in —Folio. We have only the quarto edition, but the Biblio-

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 59

théque Nationale, according to its catalogue, possesses the folio edition, the title of
which scems to be the same as Pritzel gives in his “Thesaurus.”

The announcement of the work is also given in 1824 in the Bibliographie de la
France; “The work will be in 3 volumes which will appear by livraison, every two
months, Price in 4° jésus papier satine, 15 fr... In folio jésus papier velin satine
d’Annonay, colored illustrations, 60 fr.” [glossy perhaps considered as the translation
of the word ‘‘satine’’].

The term jésus characterized the grandeur of the sheet of paper, and this name
shows in the mark of the fabric: J.H.S. ‘‘monogramme de Christ,” which was im-
printed in transparence in the sheet of paper according to the form, in order to
designate the format.

After all the evidence was in, it appeared as if the old reliable Pritzel had
failed us. He made no mention of a quarto edition yet the pagination he
gives agrees with that of the quarto set at the Royal Horticultural Society
and at the Arnold Arboretum. And if he mistakenly called the quarto edition
a folio he also erred in giving it colored plates. However, if our set had
checked with Pritzel we might not have known that we had an edition of
an important botanical work so rare that we have been able to trace defi-

nitely only one other copy, and that in Europe.

NOTES

Mr. G. H. Pring, Superintendent of the Garden, as one of the trustees
of the American Orchid Society, attended its board meeting in New York,
March 11. On March 15 he acted as chairman of judges at the Nashville
Orchid Show.

At the February meeting of the Board of Trustees, Mr. John S. Lehmann
was elected President of the Board and Acting Director of the Garden. The
previous president, Mr. Richard Lockwood, will continue to serve as a
Trustee. Dr. George T. Moore was made Emeritus Director and will remain

at the Garden in that capacity.

The Cineraria Show in the Floral Display House will be open to the
public on March 8 and will continue through March 22. Although the
cinerarias will dominate, the display will also contain primroses, cyclamen,
amaryllis, calla lilies, and other spring flowers. The Easter Show will be
ready by March 29 and will continue through April.

The February number of the ANNALS OF THE Missourr BoTANICAL
GarpvEN (Vol. XL, No. 1) was issued recently, with contents as follows:
Bluegrass Pasture Almanac, by Alfred G. Etter; The Popcorns of Turkey,
by Edgar Anderson and William L. Brown; A Preliminary Survey of the
Milpa System of Maize Culture as Practiced by the Maya Indians of the
Northern Part of the Yucatan Peninsula, by R. A. Emerson.

60 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

The Missouri Botanical Garden Grass Herbarium:—Some of the most
important changes at a botanical garden take place so slowly that no public
announcement is ever made. They can be so gradual that even those of us
who work here fail to note them unless some specific incident reminds us of
what used to be. During the last five years a change of this sort has been
going on in our grass herbarium and we now have one of the finest and most
effective collections in the New World.

The beginnings of our grass herbarium go back to the time of Henry
Shaw’s friend, Dr. George Engelmann, who took a lively interest in this im-
portant group of plants and exchanged specimens with many of the im-
portant grass authorities of his day. During Dr. Trelease’s time several
important purchases were made, and the collection has continued to grow.
It is one thing, however, to have such a collection and it is quite another to
have it in a usable condition. This is particularly true of grasses. Though
fundamentally no more difficult to understand than roses or butter-
cups (and by no means so perplexing as the milkweed family with which
Dr. Woodson has long been occupied) they have many special features. One
who is going to understand the grasses of any region must first gain a
thorough understanding of the characteristics of this important family of
plants. This is asking too much of most busy scientists. Many botanists,
professional and amateur, who know the rest of the flora of a region have
only a nodding acquaintance with its grasses. So it came about that up until
five years ago, though the Missouri Botanical Garden possessed one of the
world’s finest grass herbaria, virtually no one knew of its importance, and
scholars needing to consult it would have had to put in weeks (if not
months) of careful work before the collections could be used.

It was not until Dr. George Van Schaack was made Honorary Curator
of Grasses in 1947 that the task of ordering up this important collection
was begun in earnest. On nights and Sundays, on holidays, and during much
of his vacation for over five years he has worked at the collection. Only
gargantuan task it has been.

oe

those of us who have helped him realize what a
Whole sections of Dr. Engelmann’s grass herbarium still lay in the original
bundles, unopened since they had been turned over to the Garden over half
a century ago. There were whole cases full of grasses which were virtually
unsorted, including many specimens which had never been identified.

Winter and summer, for over five years, Dr. Van Schaack has stuck at
his self-appointed task. This winter the last big block of unsorted material
has been incorporated in the herbarium. There is still much to do but the
main job is over. To those of us at the Garden it is a satisfaction to see this
fine collection put into general usefulness and to learn that it is indeed an
even more important grass herbarium than we had hoped.

THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

John S$. Lehmann zs eee _ .. President
Daniel K. Catlin........ SA ees ae eee one __ Vice-President
Eugene Pettus. Perea eens Ne eee ee eee Second Vice-President

Dudley French George T. Moore

Henry Hitchcock A. Wessel Shapleigh

Richard J. Lockwood Ethan A. H. Shepley

Robert Brookings Smith

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS

Arthur H. Compton... ---.------. Chancellor, Washington University
Joseph M. Darst_.---.---..-------------------. Mayor of the City of St. Louis
Stratford L. Morton -...-. President, St. Louis Academy of Science
Arthur C. Lichtenberger___ __. Bishop of the Diocese of Missouri
James Fitzgerald ....____.__.. President, Board of Education of St. Louis
re ay) Pet ee eee ne OIC Sere at Pros Me oh oo Es
STAFF
forte eae OC sy (st, enn eae an ee. Acting Director
George T. Moore = TEN Eee oy ae Big m fehg
Edgar Anderson PE eo eo ocasialan sae ee eae
av rah Wi ae ee a sa: ae ae Beustence Mycologist
Robere E. W ovdson,. Jt... Curator of Herbarium
Henry N. Andrews........------------------------------ Paleobotanist
Rey le tk caked oe Bias epslentapeeensyececs Assistant Curator of Herbarium
Hugh C. Cutler Curator Museum of Economic Plants
George B. Van Schaack_._._....-------------------------— Honorary Curator of Grasses
Julian A. Steyermark._..-...--------. -—-—---------------- Honorary Research Associate
Bel se GEC as acest sca cde ae Librarian and Editor
er 1 (: Let 0) |g lo) eee eee SSadewencasoieuc eee _.... Business Manager
ecree th, PONS eke Sidesiesteasie ot coger _.... Superintendent
EE Oe Aso | ae ae ee ne nnmner TT NENNS ee 572 (610) 0 bls
Ladislaus Cutak _ .. Horticulturist in charge of Conservatories
Frederick G. Meyer-.. .-.------------2---2.2-----------2cce-ennns ene sccecc ones Dendrologist
[etc ll athe: ite 10) cee ee eR poh: ees ccusenencseseenee = ENgineer
Wagdst Py Delman. we Manager of the Arboretum, Gray Summit
J CORD os 1) eee ee ee Assistant Manager of the Arboretum
ERE Ne he | 4, eee a Oe RE nn aED 8 Rann ene In charge of Orchids

SOME FACTS ABOUT THE GARDEN

The Missouri Botanical Garden was opened to the public by Mr.
Henry Shaw about 1860. From that date until his death in 1889 it
was maintained under his personal direction. Although popularly
known as “Shaw’s Garden” the name Missouri Botanical Garden
was chosen by Mr. Shaw and he definitely indicated that he wished
it called by that name. The Garden passed at his death into the
hands of a Board of Trustees, designated in Mr. Shaw’s will, and
the Board so constituted, exclusive of certain ex-officio members,
is self-perpetuating. By a further provision of the will the immedi-
ate direction of the Garden is vested in a Director, appointed by
the Board. The Garden receives no support from city or state but
is maintained almost exclusively from the estate left by Henry
Shaw. Since 1939 many Garden Clubs and interested individuals
have contributed to a “Friends of the Garden Fund” which is used
in developing the new Arboretum, located at Gray Summit, Mo.
The Arboretum (1) serves as a source of plants, trees and shrubs
for the city Garden; (2) affords areas for gradually establishing
a pinetum, a wild-flower reservation and various other features
on a scale not possible in the city; (3) provides greenhouses for

some 50,000 orchid plants.

The city Garden comprises 75 acres, where about 12,000 species
of plants are grown, both out of doors and under glass. It is open
every day in the year except New Year’s Day and Christmas; week
days, 8:00 a. m. until 7:00 p. m.; Sundays, 10:00 a. m. until 7:00

p.m. The greenhouses are closed every day at 5:00 p. m.

The main entrance to the Garden is at Tower Grove and Flora
Place, on the Sarah bus line (No. 42). The Southampton _ buses
(No. 80), direct from downtown, pass within three blocks of the

main entrance.

VISSOURI BOTANICAL
GARDEN BULLETIN

Special Number Prepared by the Rose Society of Greater St. Louis

The American Rose Society William H. Bies
Roses—From One Amateur to Another ............William S. Brock
I Hunted Old Roses _..........George D. Greene
Roses Grow on You : eee tees Virgil G. Baker
Nothing to Growing Roses ree John E. Nies
Species and Old-Fashioned Roses fer the St. Louis Area......John S. Lehmann
Rose Testing ; Frank R. McMath
The Quest = _....Mary Lou Huggenberger
Creating a Rose Garden ; Sen Alma Blum
Rose Growing as a Hobby Doris Hochuli

Volume XLI April, 1953 Number 4

Missouri Botanical
Garden Bulletin

Vol. XLI APRIL, 1953 No. 4

THE AMERICAN ROSE SOCIETY
WILLIAM H. BIES*

The American Rose Society, a national organization, came into existence
in 1899. From a very humble beginning, the Society now numbers over
13,000 members, and is the largest horticultural body in America. This
membership has been brought together through a common interest—the
desire to grow better roses. Today its influence is felt wherever roses are
grown, and in banding together a great host of lovers of the rose, the Society
has become one of the great horticultural organizations of the world.

The American Rose Society has two definite objectives: (1) the practical
one—to help its members in the culture of roses, in choosing what sprays
and dusts to use, what fertilizers and plants to buy, and whatever else needs
to be done in order to grow good roses; (2) the higher objective—to help its
members understand the uplifting influence of the garden and its roses. The
rose is really a thing apart in the world of nature, its preeminence having
been recognized from earliest times.

The activities of the Society are directed by a group of officers and
directors elected annually by the members. They give unstintingly of their
time and effort, and a paid capable staff devotes full time to the business of
the Society. The Society has divided the United States into districts, each
of which is under the direction of a member of the Board of Directors, and
each district is subdivided into areas from which is selected a talented and
qualified member to whom other members in the area may turn for advice
and counsel.

The headquarters of the Society, long at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is in
the process of being moved to Columbus, Ohio. Here amid many broad
acres and beautiful surroundings the city of Columbus is erecting a perma-
nent home for the national headquarters. Here also will be located the
Society’s own rose test garden along with the city’s rose garden, which is to
be the largest in America.

* Member of Board of Directors of the American Rose Society.

(61)

62 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

The Society has brought to many the value of growing roses and growing
them well. It maintains its own test gardens in all parts of the country so
that roses can be evaluated under all climatic conditions. In this connec-
tion, it may be of interest to note that such a test garden has come into being
at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Through an American Rose Society
Fellowship the University of Maryland is working diligently with the U. S.
Department of Agriculture at Beltsville, Maryland, in evolving cures for
rose diseases.

Through the “Rose Annual” and the monthly ‘American Rose Maga-
zine,” published by the Society, can be found the solutions to many problems
which confront the grower who wishes to excel in producing fine bloom.
The great lending library is a storehouse of information and rose lore. The
leaflets on rose growing, variety ratings, and buyer’s guide are always looked
forward to by the members, and the “Proof of the Pudding,” a compendium
of the members’ reports on varieties, is a source of great interest. It might
be said that the American Rose Society is a clearing house for rose informa-
tion.

At the meetings of the American Rose Society which are held twice a
year (St. Louis will be host to the American Rose Society in May, 1955) the
members foregather in a fellowship unsurpassed in any other organization.
The programs are on subjects vitally germane to rose culture by recognized
authorities. At these meetings are held the National Rose Shows and any
member the country over may compete for American Rose Society trophies.
At the present time the Society has assumed the training of accredited rose-
show judges so that local shows may be better served in the future.

The American Rose Society is a most vigorous body desirous of carrying
out its objectives both in a quantitative and qualitative manner and to bring
roses to every home. ‘The rose is one of the world’s oldest flowers and has
correctly been termed the “Queen” of all flowers. From spring until frost
the rose reigns in beauty and gives forth an abundance of bloom unequalled
by any flower. Growing roses is indeed a source of great pleasure and relax-
ation and handsomely rewards any effort.

Did you ever make “cinnamon roses’? when you were little? About a
tablespoonful of rose petals, some cinnamon and brown sugar were wrapped
up tightly in heavy paper and buried under a piece of sod. The spot was
marked and two days later the roses were supposed to be ready to eat. By
that time the sugar would be liquified and the flavor of the roses and the
cinnamon would be subtly blended with the brown sugar taste.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 63

ROSES—FROM ONE AMATEUR TO ANOTHER
WILLIAM S. BROCK*

Pity the individual with no training or experience in plant culture who
would love to start a modest rose garden. He reads the magazines, the cata-
logues, and perhaps a bulletin or two, but hesitates to take the plunge over
what appears to be rather formidable obstacles. I fear from my own case
and testimony of neighbors that a good bit of the published instructions
are aimed at a degree of perfection not attainable by the ordinary mortal.
That which follows is an attempt to make the path a little easier and enable
more people to appreciate and enjoy roses.

Let’s assume that there is only a small plot available; that there is too
much shade and possibly tree roots to compete with the rose for moisture and
plant food. Last week a neighbor asked me if it was possible to grow roses
on the north side of the house since there was no other place available.
Naturally, I told him to use the site he had. What varieties? Where to
buy? When to buy? How to prepare the soil? What fertilizer to use?
How to plant? How to control pests? These and a score of other questions
are bewildering. Small wonder that many give up before starting.

The truth of the matter is that rose cultivation in the St. Louis area is
absurdly simple. Situated between the North and the South, climate is just
about ideal; far enough north to avoid effects of heat on nearly all varieties;
far enough south to escape winter killing without protection, except for a
few varieties; a clay soil that is well adapted or yields to treatment readily;
planting either fall or spring; nor are insects and fungi notably difficult to
control. In short, roses are at home in the area.

Some one asked a rose grower of years of experience what types of roses
would be best for planting. The expert asked, “What kind do you like?”
The answer was, “I like Hybrid Teas.”” The reply was, “Then that is the
kind you should grow.” Had the preference expressed been Climbers or
Floribundas the answer would have been the same.

There are at least a score of dealers within a few minutes drive from
whom satisfactory plants can be had. Why order from great distances?
See the dealer nearest you; select medium to large plants; carry them home;
plant immediately or if that is impossible keep them moist until weather is
right. If a decision to plant is reached after it is too late to plant dormant
stock there are always potted plants available up to midsummer.

Preparation of soil seems to be the greatest stumbling block for the
amateur. Everywhere he reads about a deep bed with gravel, rock, or some
material in the bottom to promote drainage. Of course, good drainage is

* President St. Louis Rose Society.

64 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Planting a dormant rose

important but the average beginner simply isn’t going to prepare the soil for
plant reception according to the elaborate instructions one often sees. Dig
a hole large enough to receive the roots; plant as nearly as possible about the
same depth as the plant stood in the nursery; press the best soil available
well around roots; and the plant will live. If the site is a little low, set the
plant higher and make an earth mound around it for drainage.

Our clay soils need some additional plant food as well as better tilth;
both can be remedied by well-rotted cow manure, a half bushel to the plant
—perhaps one-third well mixed with the soil before planting, the balance
around the plant above ground. Cut top canes back to 10-18 inches and
let the plant and nature take care of things for a while.

Perhaps the least understood of all cultural practices is plant protection.
Here again, nature is on our side. Mildew, a major scourge in some places,
and Japanese beetles, to mention only a couple, are either no problem or
non-existent. There are literally dozens of proprietary spraying or dusting
mixtures to be had on shelves of your neighborhood store which, if applied
according to direction, will control black spot, the No. 1 enemy, and an
assortment of chewing insects which infest leaf and bud. A contact spray
for aphids, to be applied early in the season, is available in many combina-
tions. Spray or dust once every three weeks.

What we have been trying to say is that one does not need to be a com-

bination horticulturist-entomologist-pathologist to grow enough roses for a

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 65

soul feast. The formula suggested will, of course, not bring either maximum
production or show roses. But we have seen the share-cropper gloating over
some really showy bloom on a few plants, and it is possible to plan a program
so arduous that there isn’t much time to enjoy the beauty of nature’s bounty.
Of course, there are the objections “that roses won’t live with the care I am
able to give them.” Well, so what? Suppose they have to be replaced in
three to four years! Where can one get so much satisfaction for such a
small investment? Replace the worn-out plants frequently and start over.
The results will be worth while.

I HUNTED OLD ROSES
GEORGE D. GREENE

Do you like to hunt around in attics, in barns, for valuable things? If
you have hopes of finding a piece of Heppelwhite or a brass radiator Ford by
such endeavor, you might like to join a treasure hunt for old roses. They
are all around you. All you need to do is look. The identifying of them is
quite another matter, but you may re-discover something valuable which
will bring pleasure to yourself and to your friends. I have done this, and
the reward was to have my find labeled “the most beautiful Damask Rose
I have ever seen,” by the renowned old rose expert, Mr. G. D. Thomas of
England. Perhaps a story is in order.

It is said that if you stay with roses long enough, you will eventually
find yourself planting the old roses. I found this to be true and bought all
that the glowing descriptions in the catalogue of Bobbink & Atkins could
induce me to spend money for. Then I borrowed two valuable books, one
Bunyard’s ‘““Old Garden Roses” (now out of print, but the Missouri Botanical
Garden has a copy in its library) and “Old Roses” by Mrs. Keays. This
latter book, fortunately, is still in print and may be ordered from the Mac-
Millan Company. I found these books stimulating and valuable. I also
found the personal advice of Mr. John Lehmann and a visit to his marvelous
garden of old roses indispensable for a knowledge of the subject. Mr. Leh-
mann is a fine rose grower and I believe is as good an authority on the sub-
ject as you will find in this country.

The Garden library also has a quarto addition of Redouté’s ‘‘Les Roses.”
This book consists almost entirely of water-color paintings of the roses of
around 1800 done by the famous French painter of flowers, Redouté, in the
same way that Audubon painted birds. A botanical text in French was of
little value to me; in fact, I would not have understood it very well even if
it would have been in English.

A word about Mrs. Keays. Any lover of roses, or any one else for
that matter, will more than enjoy reading her book. Imagine a New
York school-teacher buying a pre-Civil War estate almost gone to ruin on a

66 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

tidal creek in southern Maryland! In moving a tangle of overgrown old
roses out into the sun to “see what she had” the old rose bug bit her.
Within a few years she had become an authority on the subject and the book
will make you want to start.

Whenever it was possible, on trips within a hundred miles radius of Sc.
Louis, I got in touch with friends who had farms where there might be old
roses. In addition, people heard of my interest and told me about possible
locations. For the most part, these were farm houses, either deserted or in
the hands of people who knew little about the origin of the roses growing
on their places. When they did, the information was very unscientific and
might be described as, “Grandmother Jones’ roses who came over the moun-
tains on horseback.” Usually I made a second trip back, after the roses were
dormant, and moved them into my little bittie back-yard at one corner of
the vegetable patch. By the next spring, they bloomed enough so that
common roses could be eliminated.

From a lover of old roses in Jefferson City came a large collection of
suckers and slips including Old Blush, Schailer’s Provence, Rosa alba and
one called Apricot. I am sure that Apricot is not the name of this rose, but
it is my No. 2 find. Its growth habit is exactly like that of a little China
or Monthly rose but instead of having a few pink petals in the bloom it has
many many orange-apricot-colored petals. The lady who gave it to me said
that it had been discovered growing on the side of the present state capitol
building in Jefferson City, so we know that it is very old. This little rose
grows fine from cuttings, and during this winter a number of propagations
have been made from it.

From Maurice File’s grandmother’s little garden in Greenville, Illinois,
came a valuable Baby Rambler. This one likes to grow. It grows from
knee- to waist-high, and it is loaded all summer with many-petaled pinkish-
white blooms that charm every one who sees it. This is my No. 3 find.

Back of every rose that we know today is that mysterious ancestor the
Damask rose, but it’s only there as a shadow. The Damask was such a good
ancestor that it lost its identity completely. When the Monthly rose came
in about 1820, the Hybrid Perpetual from 1840 to 1880, gardeners, then
as now, yielded to their own desires and to certain commercial pressures and
dug up the old in favor of the new. The Damask crossed readily with
almost anything in the way of a rose. The crosses were sometimes better
than the original, so that the Damask itself was almost entirely lost; lost com-
mercially that is, lost along with a lot of other perfectly fine old-time roses;
but many of them are not actually lost. They bloom away under adverse con-
ditions in old farm-yards and in old abandoned homesteads where habitations
no longer exist. Being of an extremely hardy disposition they are living but
not thriving. Bring them out in the sun and fertilize them and you will

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Rosa alba in St. Louis

67

68 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

see you have something very nice. Such is what happened to my Damask
rose.

In Bond County, Illinois, a few miles from Sorento, a little town off the
main highway, there exists a log cabin. It is known as the Old Wade Place.
Nobody lives in it. It is distinguished chiefly by the fact that it is a two-
story log cabin built along colonial lines and it has the finest bluegrass lawn
that I have ever seen. This grass is an old strain coming half way to your
knees. It is never cut, and walking on it is quite a sensation. On this
little place are three clusters of old roses, and when no one was looking |
took a sucker from each one. All bloomed out dutifully the following
spring and two were discarded as duplicates of something I already had. The
third one was very definitely something different. The blooms came in
clusters. The outer petals formed a little dish something like a little glass
ash-tray with turned-up edges, but the middle of the rose was simply full of
a profusion of little petals that couldn’t quite come out. The color was
several shades of pink, and nobody who visited my garden failed to stop and
want one for his buttonhole. Peculiarly enough, this type of bloom lasted
for two years until the plant recovered from its previous adversity and de-
cided to go places. This last spring every petal opened up into a sizable
bloom and the rose was quite a sight to behold. In my stumbling and
fumbling through Keays’ book, I had erronously identified it as an old
Bourbon rose and called it the Wade Bourbon. After some correspondence
with Mr. Thomas in England I sent over a sucker by air-mail in the fall of
1951, and in England’s delightful rose-growing climate it bloomed the first
spring it was planted. I quote from Mr. Thomas, “I do not think there is
any doubt that it is a Damask rose. It is the most beautiful Damask rose I
have ever seen and I hope that it may be possible to find another name for
it. I will certainly get in touch with you if I have any success.” So out of
the limbo of the past, a Damask ghost has been re-created and re-identified,
and it wasn’t a ghost after all.

Do you have a place on the river or out in the country?) Why not have
some of the old roses moved out into the garden, feed them for a year or two
and see what you have. It may turn out to be the common white Rosa alba
which is a perfectly swell rose to have around or the common pink June
Rose which you can take or leave. Incidentally, I found this pink one,
otherwise known as Schailer’s Provence, almost everywhere I went; in
fact, three houses on my block had it. However, to be an old-rose hunter
you will need to be the kind of person who likes to poke around in
attics delighting to find a piece of furniture or the old automobile (I have
just found an old Stanley Steamer) and who gets a kick out of restoring
them to active service. For me, the satisfactions have been much more
important than the effort.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 69

Hybrid Tea and Shrub roses in garden of Mrs. George W. Taylor

ROSES GROW ON YOU
VIRGIL G. BAKER

Funny thing about roses. They grow on you.

Time was when all I knew about roses was that they came by the dozen
from the retail florist’s shop and you ordered them out to the girl friend, or
for weddings, funerals or other special occasions. They’re convenient that
way. You don’t have to know much about them... or about any other
flower. You never call up and say “send a cyclamen” or ‘‘how about a
bouquet of Elephant’s Ears?”

That’s what I mean... they grow on you... you just call up and say
“send roses.” After awhile it gets you to thinking ... there’s a rose for
every occasion. At that point you become curious. You discover there’s
not only one for every occasion, but there’s one for almost every possible
situation, as well. Then you’re in for it.

You think that, if they grow on you that way, maybe they'll grow for
you. So you go out and buy a rose... oh, just any rose... and you dig

70) MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Golden Climber “Mrs. Arthur Curtiss Hybrid Perpetual “Frau Karl Druschki”

James”

a hole and stick it in the ground and water it from time to time. Chances
are it does all right, too. For roses are like that. With just half a chance,
they'll do all right. And that’s what I like about them. You can get as
energetic as you like. You can fuss and fume over them like a hen with
chickens. Or, you can more or less just let "em grow, and they’ll do it.
They’re a good lazy man’s flower, and they’re just as intriguing to the
scientist who’s an eager beaver with chromosomes and such things.

Rose growers fall into several categories, according to how you make
the breakdown. For instance, there are: the novice, the amateur, the ad-
vanced amateur and the professional. The only difference between the
advanced amateur and the professional is that the professional rings the bell

. on the cash register; and the rest of us make it possible for him to do it.

Now the novice can be broken down into a few classifications himself.
Sometimes he can just be broken down. But it isn’t often. First in the
novice class is the Green Thumb Novice. He may continue to be a novice
all his life, since he gets results without any undue effort and never needs to
find out how to do it by approved scientific procedure. Then there’s the
grasshopper novice. He tries everything without waiting to see whether
what he tried first is going to work. Unless he settles down some time, he
may eventually be broken. Then there’s the novice who takes things seri-

ously, who tags and calendars and catalogues. He’s the only one who ever

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 71

gets to the rank of advanced amateur. But it’s a funny thing about roses.
The Green Thumb novice is just as likely to come up with a show prize
blossom as is the advanced amateur or the professional. The grasshopper
novice may come up with a prize. If he does, chances are he'll settle down,
if he knows how he produced the prize winner, and become a_ studious
amateur. The novice who goes into rose growing seriously from the first
is likely to come up with a winner, sooner or later, green thumb or no green
thumb.

Then, of course, there are two other kinds of gardeners that won't
exactly fit into any of these categories. One of them is the lazy gardener.
The other is the gardener who just doesn’t have the time to work at it, much
as he’d like to. For the lazy gardener and the one who hasn’t the time, the
rose still is the flower of flowers. For a Paul’s Scarlet Climber out against
the garage will grow and grow and bloom and bloom with very little atten-
tion. And old-fashioned roses, like Harison’s Yellow and some of the Pillars
and Ramblers, are as healthy and as rugged as the country. Speaking of the
country, even the farmer who doesn’t like to build fences can do it with
roses... multifloras . . . which get thick enough to hold stock, and need
little or no attention year after year. Not to mention the Hybrid Per-
petuals and the Floribundas for general gardening, which give a lot of bloom
in their seasons for the little work they require!

it’s really only the Teas that get touchy and have to be petted and
pampered; but not all of them really. But it’s better for the novice, green
thumb or no, to start with just a few of the tried and true that supply deep
color tones for accents in the garden and do well even when not babied like
a kitty-cat on a satin pillow. Radiance (it’s pink) or Red Radiance, which
the more advanced gardeners dismiss as a mere nothing, is a good rose to
start with. It will do all right around this area when others won’t stand
the gaff of ineffectual handling, hot, dry summers and uncertain winters.
Then there is Crimson Glory for a good deep red, Lowell Thomas in yellow,
and one of the sturdiest with mixed colors is Peace, a relative newcomer.

Pick no more than half a dozen plants to start, especially if your time’s
limited or your space restricted, for often even the most beautiful show
roses come out of the small and unpretentious gardens that don’t create more
work than the gardener is equipped to undertake. It’s really very simple.
Dig a hole, spread the roots out over a little mound of rich earth at the
bottom and fill in solidly around so that no air spaces are left to dry the
roots out before they can get a good hold on the soil. Water and stand by.
A little dust or spray later on will help them when the bugs show up, but
don’t get too enthusiastic and throw on everything. Take it easy on fertil-
izers or liquid feeds and such stuff until the plant gets over the shock of

72 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

being moved. Later on, feed it a little with fertilizing material, but even
then don’t overdo it. Like all food and medicine, because a little is good, it
doesn’t follow that too much is better. Most of all, don’t get so involved
in the technicalities that you forget to enjoy the beauty of the flower. There’s
no profit, even to a professional, when it ceases to be fun.

NOTHING TO GROWING ROSES
JOHN E. NIES

Any one can grow roses but to grow good roses you need to start with
good plants and have information available to follow through. Speaking
from experience, for the first ten years I just planted rose bushes and found
each spring I had to replace a large percentage due to many causes of which
I was unfamiliar. Now as a member of the Rose Society of Greater St.
Louis, which is affiliated with the American Rose Society, I have available
information as to those roses that are the best growers, as well as good
bloomers. This is obtained through test gardens (one of which is in the
Missouri Botanical Garden) throughout the United States where the roses
are carefully checked and the results reported to a central bureau which
compiles the information into what is called ‘‘Proof of the Pudding.” This
rating guide, as well as ‘‘a guide for beginners on growing roses,” is available
from your local society gratis. Also, your local Rose Society has programs
for members, starting in January, in which experts explain the proper prep-
aration of the soil, how to choose a good bush, proper planting and pruning,
the various needs such as dormant sprays, sprays to control insects and sprays
to prevent fungus and black spot. Then just prior to the Society’s Rose
Show, usually held the last week of May, there is a program on exhibiting,
with a professional explaining how to arrange roses. Also the “Voice of
the Rose,” monthly publication of the St. Louis Rose Society, contains
helpful cultural notes.

In addition to the information acquired through the various sources
already mentioned, there are numerous books available but the true rosarian
still likes to do things that are considered unorthodox. I believe each of us
must learn to know his own garden and conditions. Even my wife and I
don’t agree on insect control—she likes spray (Triogen) while I like dusting,
so we do both alternately with good results.

I have numerous beds, about 250 bushes of 75 varieties, and I find the
worst enemy to growing good roses and one of the hardest to control is tree
roots. I have found roots from some trees will reach 25 feet or more, and
the only way to partially control this condition is to use a long trench-
digging spade, forcing it down to its full depth, completely around the bed

several times a season to cut the offenders. One other thing I try to avoid

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 73

is getting foliage wet when watering. To prevent this, I build a levee of
earth around my beds so that in hot weather I can flood them at the roots
and the water will soak in and not run off.

I like to plant roses among low-growing evergreens such as yews; it
gives an attractive effect. I also plant ivy on the ground which improves
the looks of the beds as well as keeping the ground moist and helping to

control weeds.

A small rose garden at the Missouri Botanical Garden

A rosarian loves his roses and is always willing and anxious to give infor-
mation to those who seek it; in fact you will find every one is on the same
level when talking roses, and friends are made and kept thereby. Dorothy
Gurney’s verse appearing on the Bok Singing Tower of Florida can apply
to rose lovers:

“The kiss of the sun for pardon
The song of the birds for mirth
One is nearer God’s heart in a garden

Than anywhere else on earth.”

The large bright-colored fruits of Rosa rugosa can be used in making a
garnish for fruit salad. If one works carefully the seeds can be scooped out

and replaced with cream cheese or some such mixture.

74 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

SPECIES AND OLD-FASHIONED ROSES THAT DO WELL
IN THE ST. LOUIS AREA

JOHN S. LEHMANN

Of the once-blooming species shrub roses, with single flowers, that do
well in the St. Louis area, the Sweet Brier, Rosa altaica, and Rosa Hugonis
are among the most desirable. All are hardy and require no special attention.
The Sweet Brier is about six feet tall and has small pink flowers. However,
its most distinguishing characteristic, which has made it a favorite from
the days of Shakespeare up to and including today, is the pleasing fragrance
of its foliage. Rosa altaica with white, and Hugonis with yellow flowers,
are about four or five feet tall, and are among the earlier-flowering roses.

Another good, hardy, early, once-blooming, shrub rose is Harison’s
Yellow. It is about six feet tall and spreads by suckering. It is covered in
early spring with small, double, well-shaped, bright yellow, fragrant flowers.
In my garden it is habitually the earliest good double rose.

Rosa alba, R. centifolia, R. damascena and R. gallica all have semi-double
or double flowers, but are not remontant. They have been cultivated in the
gardens of Europe for centuries, going back to the Greeks and the Romans,
and were brought over to America by the early settlers. They are all hardy
in this climate.

Rosa alba is a big vigorous shrub about eight feet tall, with handsome
bluish-green foliage and good-sized, semi-double white flowers with showy
yellow stamens. Hybrid albas, such as Maiden’s Blush, are about six feet
tall. The foliage is not as bluish as that of Rosa alba. The flowers are
fragrant, double, about four inches in diameter, and in various shades of
pink.

Rosa centifolia is a much smaller, less vigorous plant than R. alba. It is
about four or five feet in height and produces globular, very double and
very fragrant, pink flowers. Moss roses are a division of Rosa centifolia,
resulting from the tendency of centifolia to produce bud sports. The prin-
cipal difference between Moss Rose and ordinary centfifolia is that the Moss
Rose has a moss-like growth on the sepals, calyx, and stem. This growth is
the result of multiplication of the glands. It is decorative and adds to the
fragrance of the flower. Moss roses also generally have more prickles all
over the plant than the ordinary centifolia. The different varieties of Moss
roses differ greatly in both the quantity and character of the mossiness. Two
of the best are Crested Moss and Old Pink Moss.

Mme. Hardy, a hybrid Damask and a little more vigorous in growth
than centifolia, produces fine, large, double, fragrant white flowers, prob-
ably the best of the old-fashioned white roses. Another good hybrid Damask
is Marie Louise, with double, deep pink, fragrant flowers.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN p>

Shrub Rose “Harison’s Yellow” Bourbon Rose “Hermosa”

Rosa gallica is low-growing, with bright pink semi-double flowers about
four inches across, and showy yellow stamens. Rosa gallica versicolor, also
known as Rosamundi and sometimes as York and Lancaster, is identical with
red gallica except that the petals are striped a very bright red and white.
Fanny Bias, 1819, is a pink hybrid gallica, very full and fragrant.

Early in the nineteenth century French and English hybridists started
crossing the ever-blooming roses from China with the European roses. This
eventually gave us the Bourbon roses, combining the remontant character-
istics of the Chinese roses with the vigor and hardiness of the European
roses. Four of these old Bourbon roses are still good and do well here.
Zephirine Drouhin (Bizot, 1868) is a thornless Climber with large bright
pink, fragrant flowers. Souy. de la Malmaison comes in two forms, the
climbing form and the bush form. The climbing form is hardy here but is
once-blooming. The bush form is remontant but requires winter protection
in this locality (I have not grown it). The climbing form is very vigorous
and is covered in the spring with very double, quartered, flesh-pink flowers
of exceptional fragrance. Louise Odier, 1851, has medium-sized, bright pink,
semi-globular, very fragrant flowers. In growth it is about like a Hybrid
Perpetual. Hermosa, 1840, shorter in stature than Louise Odier, has small,
globular, fragrant, pink flowers. Both Louise Odier and Hermosa are steady
bloomers through the summer and fall until stopped by cold weather.

76 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Zephirine Drouhin, although remontant, is a somewhat shy bloomer in the
summer and autumn.

Of the Hybrid Perpetuals, Paul Neyron, 1868, is old enough to be classed
as old-fashioned and is one of the best. The stems are practically thornless.
The flowers are very large, a deep rose-pink and fragrant. It is remontant

and produces fine flowers in the late summer and autumn.

Climber “Pigmy Gold” in Frank McMath’s garden

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 77

ROSE TESTING
FRANK R. McMATH

With frontiers fast fading beyond the horizon, exploration of new lands
and countries becomes increasingly difficult, so those of us who feel the urge
to pioneer must turn our efforts to other fields. What greater thrill could
one have than to see unfolding a new rose of a different color, a larger size,
more fragrance, or perfection of form: a Crimson Glory, a Fashion, or a
Peace! These are rewards of pioneering or testing new roses; it is thus I
show my devotion to the “Queen.”

Of course, all is not success; there are many failures but compared with
those of the hybridizers or originators, who may get one good rose out of
10,000, the disappointments are few. True, too, is the fact that you can-
not test many of the 500 odd new varieties that are placed on the market
each year. But the satisfaction, in this competitive world, just in having
a newer or better rose than your fellow rosarians is its own reward. This is
the driving force that causes me to slave in the garden, to spray, to culti-
vate, to fertilize when I might be reclining in the shade of a tree.

Among testers there is a divergence of opinion as to how to care for
these new roses. Some plant and ignore them, to live or die according to
nature’s whim; some give a minimum of care; but I strive to give mine only
the best of care and attention and, when I have achieved some success, to
share them with others through giving bouquets and having visitors to my
garden.

The climate and soil of our country are so varied that often roses which
do well in one locality do not do well in others. For this reason, hybridizers,
originators or introducers of new roses from other continents desire to know
how well their roses will perform in order that they can estimate how great
will be the market for them. There is, of course, the All American Rose
Selection test gardens (supported by the commercial growers), scattered
throughout the country, that test roses for two years, grading and picking
the several outstanding roses for each year. But the best testing is that done
by amateurs, as most of the roses are grown for and sold to amateurs. There
are many individuals and societies like our own trying out roses in test
gardens, but probably the best organized amateur test program is that of
the Men’s Garden Clubs of America. This program is headed by our Ameri-
can Rose Society President, C. Eugene Pfister, and carried out by one rep-
resentative from most of the nearly 150 affiliated clubs. Gene contacts the
introducers, so as to provide a source of plants which are sent to the indi-
vidual tester, under license. The plants remain the property of the intro-
ducer who may ask for their return or destruction after the test program is
over. Gene also makes up a detailed report blank on which the roses are

78 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

rated periodically throughout the season and then graded at the end of the
year. Floribundas and Hybiid Teas are tested for two years and Climbers
for three years. These testers also try out insecticides, fungicides, fertilizers,
and garden gadgets. Our St. Louis Society has Mr. William Sisco as repre-
sentative of this program, and the writer represents the Webster Groves
Men’s Garden Club.

Hybrid Tea “Symphony”

in Frank McMath’s garden

The roses we receive are usually only numbered and are planted and
cared for as our other roses. Later, generally at the end of the growing
season, we are told of the name by which the rose will be known and are

given a release for publication purposes.

Thus my testing experience, which I also give to the American Rose
Society through the ‘Proof of the Pudding” in the American Rose Society
Annual, leads me to advise that Ma Perkins is not as prolific a bloomer as

Fashion, nor is Vogue; that Remembrance and Buccaneer show promise, as

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 79

do several still under number, and that Pigmy Gold is a wonderful border
rose. This year I will be trying some of Brownell’s ground-cover roses and
one of his ever-blooming Climbers of which he says he has thousands.

We testers not only do a service to the introducers but also to every
amateur rose grower, as we can give advice on new varieties that will save
time and money. Call on us, we are always glad to talk roses and enjoy
sharing our gardens with you. Thus as rose testers we are doing our small
share in the search for that will-o’-the-wisp of the future—the ultimate, the

perfect rose.

THE QUEST
MARY LOU HUGGENBERGER

The “Rose Hobbyist” is usually one who first plants a few roses and by
chance has rather good luck. One successful season results in “happy en-
slavement” for the unsuspecting grower. As his rose appreciation evolves,
soon the hobbyist begins “The Quest” for knowledge concerning the rose.

The rose has been the favorite flower of gardeners for thousands of years.
Hundreds of forms, both natural and hybrid, now exist. Consequently, the
rose qualifies as being one of the most complex races of plants in cultivation.
Very little scientific history of the rose was recorded or studied before the
nineteenth century. Most of the early history comes to us as incidental
information, gleaned from literature and history. According to geologists,
the rose is at least thirty-five million years old, and they suggest that it
probably is about seventy million years old. Fossil roses have been found on
three continents of the world, Asia, Europe, and North America. Two fossil
roses have been found in the United States, one in Colorado and one in
central Oregon.

When civilized man began to record his history we find the rose had
already played an important part in his life. It appears to be the oldest
cultivated flower. About 1200 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar built the fabulous
Hanging Gardens of Babylon in a furtive effort to allay the homesickness of
his Median bride. It has been estimated that 300,000 roses were included in
the original planting. The Bible mentions the rose many times but does
not place it in the Garden of Eden. The Koran places it in the Garden of
Paradise, and it grows in the gardens of the Taj Mahal, laid out to its exact
design. Less than a mile from the Taj Mahal stands the ruins of the palace
of the Moguls. Nur Mahal, famed Mogul Princess, used great quantities of
rose oil in the fountains of the palace, and everywhere she went she left an
aroma of roses. Legend tells us that the process of making attar of roses
was decreed sacred and limited to her exclusive use during her lifetime.

80 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

The Persian poets speak of roses repeatedly. Hafiz extols their beauty in
more than one hundred poems, but it is Omar Khayyam, the tentmaker, that
we know best. Cuttings of the Damask rose from his grave have been
planted on the grave of Edward FitzGerald, the great translator of the
equally great poem, ‘The Rubaiyat.”

The rose takes a prominent place in the literature and art of both Greece
and Rome. The Roman scientist, Pliny, lists many rose varieties common in
southern Italy during the first century. He mentions that the true rose aroma
is strongest when the soil is dry, and this bit of cultural information is quite
correct. Nero is said to have spent an amount of money equal to 100,000
dollars to secure rose petals to strew around the palace for one royal feast.
It is probable that the lavish use of rose petals was one means to camouflage
the stench that wafted up from the city.

Certainly the rose was prized in the cradle days of the Aryan race. The
Crusaders carried the Damask rose back to Europe. The spice ships brought
many forms of the Chinese rose. The most famous of these, Old Blush, is
the foundation of our modern monthly roses. It is of Old Blush that Thomas
Moore sings in the “Last Rose of Summer.”

The rose has been used as a symbol of almost every noble human en-
deavor. It has been and is used in the heraldic emblems of nearly every
ruling family. It has symbolic significance in every religion known to man,
and it has been used as a token of love and respect through the centuries,
by Orientals and Caucasians alike. Over a period of forty centuries, peoples
of many cultures gathered together, cultivated, and used the rose. They
were satisfied to use them “just as God made them” and made little effort
to change their form.

The evolution of the rose had its beginning in France under the guid-
ance of Empress Josephine. Certainly, the historians have displayed the
universal weakness of dwelling too much on the faults of the great. This
powerful woman inspired the first real scientific effort to improve the rose.
Her interest in botany and her development of the historic garden of
Malmaison is a fascinating story for any rosarian. Josephine, who had such
great influence, gathered together the greatest botanists of her era. The first
scientific rose hybridization was carried on at Malmaison. The great artists
were encouraged to paint the rose. The famed paintings of Redouté were
done at her command. Because the nations of the world were courting the
favor of Napoleon, they sent specimens of rare plants, particularly roses, to
his empress. All ministers of state were instructed to send botanical samples.
Because Josephine loved the rose, roses became the style. The era of the
modern rose had begun.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 81

Mildew Black spot

Aphis Caterpillars

DISEASES AND INSECTS

82 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

The quest for rose lore is never finished. The search must include the
records and relics of every civilization. Truly, the rose is universal. Man’s
culture, religion, and history may differ but the rose is always a part of his
story. May it ever be so!

“Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the Rose!”

CREATING A ROSE GARDEN
ALMA BLUM

Today, nearing the date line which signifies the real entrance of Spring,
I shall try and state a few facts which prompted me to create a rose garden.

The year 1926 found me in France. As we all know, the titled ladies of
the Napoleonic times found great pleasure and art in creating lovely rose
gardens, many of which are still in existence. After enjoying them, I came
home with the solemn resolution that some day I would create for my own
delight a rose garden. Never did I think when we moved in our present
location on Longfellow Boulevard, that directly in back of our home would
be the spot to fulfill my secret desire. There stood a dilapidated building
complete with a bat-infested garage. After much inquiring, we contacted
the owner in Kansas City, and this long-uninhabited home was acquired.
Then started the real task of dismantling, so you can see that I did start
“from the ground up.”

For a garden plan, I utilized the house foundation and immediately
started filling up the basement and creating the proper ground for the rose
beds. May I say now, after seven or eight years of promoting my rose gar-
den, that too much care cannot be exercised in preparing the soil to en-
courage the roses. However, sometimes one must learn by actual experience,
which was my fate. I utilized the stone salvaged from the old house as
flagging for the garden paths, drew a plan of what I thought would appear
to be a semi-formal rose garden, then proceeded to plant the roses.

Planting was indeed a gigantic task, and much advice was sought from
the members of the Rose Society of Greater St. Louis as to the proper vari-
eties to encourage in this climate; this, too, cannot be taken too lightly if
one expects to get the best results. When one considers the many thousands
of varieties, the placing of the beds is of paramount importance. While I
have not entirely achieved what in my mind are the best results, I am con-
stantly gaining more knowledge as to the amount of care each variety of
rose expects and I find the solutions of problems unfolding. As for planting,
I have until now always considered spring the proper time, but last fall, after
attending the Rose Convention in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, I became con-

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 83

Hybrid Tea rose in March Proper pruning cut above a bud
Remove weak and dead canes and
sucker at left

vinced that fall has its opportunities. Only today I uncovered the bushes
planted last fall, and am experiencing new thrills and adventures in this
phase of rose growing. My garden, while being located in the heart of busy
St. Louis, does not suffer too much when compared with the county gardens,
and the roses, if properly sprayed, attain the same growth.

Several years ago I planted a bed of California Angels Mateu roses and
this year I am planting a bed of Editor McFarland roses (an Eastern rose),
so we shall see what will be the outcome of “East meeting West” in a rose

garden of St. Louis climate.

Rose-petal marmalade is a common delicacy in the Near East. Take
blooms of old-fashioned heavy-scented varieties. Pull off an entire rose and
with the other hand snip off with a pair of scissors all the whitish tough
bases of the petals. Buy crystals of citric acid at the drug store. Working
with a small basin of petals, rub the petals and the crystals back and forth
quickly between the palms of the hands. Add water and boil up quickly.
Flavor with sugar and use enough Certo to make the mixture jell. If the
resulting juice is too tough the petals need to be rubbed longer and bruised
more extensively. One should use enough citric acid to make it almost as
tart as crab-apple jelly. The attractive rose-red color sometimes fades near

the surface but the flavor is not affected.

84 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

ROSE GROWING AS A HOBBY
DORIS HOCHULI

I have adopted the rose as my favorite flower. The pleasure of a garden,
my own personal garden and not one made for show, is that it reflects my
tastes and ideals and the flowers that are my companions. As every one who
starts with roses, I too started with Hybrid Teas, later became interested in
old-fashioned roses, Climbers, Floribundas, Polyanthas, and Miniatures, but
now I have planted and replaced many of these with some I thought more
beautiful. When visiting our members’ gardens I always find a ‘“‘must” for
my garden.

Every rose has individuality. If one hangs its head I will not condemn
it as it reminds me of a lovely lady nodding her head in greeting. Some
climbers with weak necks, I like, as I consider their looking down on you
from a trellis a definite advantage. Why plant those climbing roses bearing
upstanding flowers that only the birds can see?

Rose growing can be as difficult as you want to make it. If you start out
with reasonably good soil, proper planting, and with little care they are most
tolerant. On a morning walk in the garden, with pruning shears handy, I cut
a few beauties for the house, and since I can see my roses from the house I
leave many on the bushes. Always there are spent blooms which are cut off
and put in a paper sack to burn. My spraying or dusting, feeding, and
watering program takes some time, but it is time well spent as there are no
other plants with the long-blooming season that the rose possesses—from
early spring to late fall. I spray or dust after each rain, thereby keeping
the leaves covered always. I prefer dusting, as I can do that in the morning
when the air is still and leaves are a bit moist and the weather not as hot; if
there are no rains I watch for heavy dews, for they too wash off the spray or
dust material. The aphids and other insects that might be nibbling I get by
using an all-purpose material. I feed once in April, May, June, and August,
and when there is no rain I water deep once a week, using a soil soaker.

The pleasures of rose growing are boundless. Once you get acquainted
with how much roses can give you for the little care they demand, they will
become trusted standbys in your garden.

The Garden has one or two rare old-fashioned varieties in its collection.
Coquette des Alpes, an early hybrid which apparently has some Rosa alba
in its make-up, has done well with us for years. Its flowers are small but a
clear flesh-pink and they bloom well in late summer and fall. So far as we
know it is not in any other collection.

SOME FACTS ABOUT THE GARDEN

The Missouri Botanical Garden was opened to the public by Mr.
Henry Shaw about 1860. From that date until his death in 1889 it
was maintained under his personal direction. Although popularly
known as “Shaw’s Garden” the name Missouri Botanical Garden
was chosen by Mr. Shaw and he definitely indicated that he wished
it called by that name. The Garden passed at his death into the
hands of a Board of Trustees, designated in Mr. Shaw’s will, and
the Board so constituted, exclusive of certain ex-officio members,
is self-perpetuating. By a further provision of the will the immedi-
ate direction of the Garden is vested in a Director, appointed by
the Board. The Garden receives no support from city or state but
is maintained almost exclusively from the estate left by Henry
Shaw. Since 1939 many Garden Clubs and interested individuals
have contributed to a “Friends of the Garden Fund” which is used
in developing the new Arboretum, located at Gray Summit, Mo.
The Arboretum (1) serves as a source of plants, trees and shrubs
for the city Garden; (2) affords areas for gradually establishing
a pinetum, a wild-flower reservation and various other features
on a scale not possible in the city; (3) provides greenhouses for

some 50,000 orchid plants.

The city Garden comprises 75 acres, where about 12,000 species
of plants are grown, both out of doors and under glass. It is open
every day in the year except New Year’s Day and Christmas; week
days, 8:00 a. m. until 7:00 p. m.; Sundays, 10:00 a. m. until 7:00
p.m. The greenhouses are closed every day at 5:00 p. m.

The main entrance to the Garden is at Tower Grove and Flora
Place, on the Sarah bus line (No. 42). The Southampton buses
(No. 80), direct from downtown, pass within three blocks of the

main entrance.

VUISSOURI BOTANICAL
GARDEN BULLETIN

CONTENTS

The World’s Biggest Food Crop

“Lamartine” Lilacs for St. Louis Robert’s Caterpillar Club from
New Zealand
Orchids Like “Oak-Beer” 300k Reviews
Notes

7olume XLI May, 1953 Number 5

CoveR: CATINAT, one of the “Lamartine Hybrids.” Photograph by Paul A. Kohl.

Office of publication: 306 E. Simmons Street, Galesburg, Illinois.

Editorial Office: Missouri Botanical Garden, 2315 Tower Grove Avenue,
St. Louis, 10, Missouri.

Published monthly except July and August by the Board of Trustees of the
Missouri Botanical Garden. Subscription price: $2.50 a year.

Entered as second-class matter January 26, 1942, at the post-office at Gales-
burg, Illinois, under the Act of March 3, 1879.

Please: Do not discard a copy of the Bulletin. If you have no further use for yours
pass it along to a friend or return it to the Garden. Return postage will
be guaranteed.

Missouri Botanical
Garden Bulletin

Vol. XLI MAY, 1953 No. 5

THE WORLD’S BIGGEST FOOD CROP
HUGH C. CUTLER

The potato is not only the world’s most important vegetable but the
annual harvest of potatoes is larger and heavier than that of any other food
crop. In the period 1946-48 the annual world potato production averaged
slightly less than eight billion bushels as compared to approximately seven
billion bushels of rough rice or six billion bushels of wheat. However, the
actual calorie content of the cereals is greater because the potato contains
about 70 per cent water and only 2 per cent protein and 14 to 19 per cent
starch. The potato is a native of South America but about 90 per cent of
the world’s crop is now grown in Europe, about a third of it in Russia.
Potatoes grow especially well on the light and acid forest soils of northern
Europe. Only 5.5 per cent of the world’s potato crop is harvested in the
United States but we still are the largest producers in the New World and
usually grow far more than we eat.

Our common cultivated potato (Solanum tuberosum ) probably originated
in Chile, Bolivia, or Peru, where the diversity of size, shape, color, flavor, and
texture in the cultivated tubers and the number of edible wild kinds 1s
greatest. Potatoes have been grown in South America for a long time.
Representations of potatoes from ruins in north coastal Peru (figs. 1 and 2)
show that as far back as a thousand years ago many kinds were known.
Today the Indian farmers in a single valley in southern Peru may grow as
many as eighteen different kinds of cultivated potatoes belonging to four
or more distinct species, may harvest several wild species which occur as
weeds in their fields and near them, and may know that three other wild
potatoes with edible tubers grow in their valley. In the high Andes the
potato is still the principal food above the altitudes where corn will grow.
Part of the highland harvest is dehydrated by methods used before the times
of the Incas. Small potatoes are frozen at night and then, after they have
thawed in the sun, pounded with bare feet to press out the water released
from cells ruptured by ice crystals. This process is repeated until potatoes

(85)

86 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

5

Fig. 1 Fig. 2

Chimu period pottery, representations of two potato varieties. Excavated in north
coastal Peru.

are dry enough to store safely. Wild potatoes with edible tubers grow from
Colorado to the south of Chile but there is no reliable evidence that they
were used before the conquest except for the occasional gathering by Pueblo
Indians of a kind (Solanum fendleri) with very small tubers.

Many attempts to grow the Andean potatoes in the United States and
Europe and to use them in hybrids to introduce superior qualities and greater
disease resistance have failed because the potato is sensitive to changes in day
length. Varieties adapted to the short summer days of low latitudes seldom
produce tubers or flowers with our long summer days. Some of the potato
varieties we grow produce fruits so seldom that when one is seen today it is
confused with the very similar young fruit of the tomato (fig. 3), and news-
papers print stories of a tomato-potato hybrid. While the probability of
such a hybrid occurring naturally is quite remote, it is possible to graft
tomato branches on a potato plant and harvest potatoes and tomatoes from
the same plant. It is even possible to add a tobacco cutting to the plant and
harvest tobacco leaves.

About 1580 the potato was grown in Europe as a garden novelty. We
do not know who was the first to introduce this vegetable but Sir Walter
Raleigh’s ships did not bring it from Virginia. The tubers found there are

groundnuts, or openawk (Apios tuberosa), which the Indians harvested from

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 87

Solanum tuberofum efculentum,

Potato plant bearing flowers and fruits. Illustration from Bauhin’s Prodromos Tbheatri
Botanici (1620), a copy of which is in the Garden library.

wild plants and occasionally cultivated. Potatoes may have been introduced
into Europe several times, for English and Spanish ships often stopped in
Chile and Peru to load native crops as provisions. In Germany laws were
passed to compel the people to plant potatoes, for it was soon discovered
that the harvest was excellent in relation to the amounts of labor and land
used. In France Parmentier successfully used a ruse to entice people to grow
them. His field was guarded during the day to give the impression that
potatoes were very valuable but at night the guard was withdrawn and the
people were given an opportunity to steal tubers for planting. The King
wore potato flowers in his button-hole, Marie Antoinette wore them in her
hair, and the potato became accepted socially.

In Ireland potatoes were grown before 1663 and, since they can produce
more food than grains in certain kinds of soils, potatoes soon became the
national food. The population of Ireland had increased rapidly, from two
million in 1785 to more than eight million in 1845, the year the potato story
in Ireland turned to a tragedy. Disease wiped out practically the entire
crop and more than 300,000 people died in the famine which followed.
Every one who could afford to buy a ticket left for the United States. This
was the first of several tides of immigration which swept Irishmen to our

88 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

country. Disease-resistant varieties of potatoes were soon selected and spray-
ing mixtures developed so that the Irish could grow potatoes again. The
potato blight is caused by a fungus (Phytophthora infestans) and is usually
controlled by copper-containing sprays such as Bordeaux mixture.

In the United States potatoes have been grown on a slowly increasing
scale since the middle of the 1700’s. About 350 million bushels were grown
in 1952. Before 1945 about 80 per cent of our potatoes were used as food,
about 13 per cent for replanting, and the remaining seven per cent fed to
livestock or lost by decay. Some starch was made, usually from cull potatoes
or the surplus in years when all the harvest could not be marketed. Most
potato starch is used for sizing in the textile and paper industries, about 25
per cent in foods. In Europe a considerable portion of the potato crop is
fed to animals or converted to alcohol.

Most of the new varieties of potatoes in the United States have been
developed by selection from seedlings. Older varieties which once formed
the bulk of the crop are gradually being replaced by ones with consistently
high yields and greater disease resistance. Early potatoes are grown in the
southern states but the major crop is produced in the North. Maine and
Idaho are the principal producers, with harvests of about 46,000,000 and
38,000,000 bushels respectively, in 1951, but many other states produce
10,000,000 or more bushels. Idaho is far from the principal potato markets
but the preference for the dry baking type grown there, usually the Russet
Burbank variety, enables Idaho to compete with other areas in spite of
higher transportation costs.

Potatoes are members of the plant family Solanaceae, are related to
tomatoes, red peppers, tobacco, and egg plants, and attacked by the same
diseases. For this reason potatoes should not be planted on land previously
occupied by one of these crops or near fields of these related plants. Planting
is done with small pieces of the tuber which include one or more of the
“eyes”, or with small tubers. As the plant matures the stolons, or under-
ground stems, enlarge at the outer end to form the tubers. Potatoes are
usually harvested, by machines on the larger farms, after the tops have
begun to dry. A new development in potato growing is the use of various
chemical dusts and sprays, flame throwers, and mechanical beaters to. kill
the potato vines shortly before the harvest and thus hasten the maturation
of the tubers.

Better varieties and improved practices in planting, fertilizing, and spray-
ing have increased, between the periods 1935-39 and 1947-51, by 95 per
cent the amount of potatoes harvested from an acre of land in this country,
This is more than twice as great as the increase made in average corn yield

during the same period and three times as great as the average increase in

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 89

yields per acre of all crops. Potato yields continue to improve rapidly,
while gains made by other crops have been relatively small during the past
two years.

Unfortunately, while potato yield per acre has nearly doubled in recent
years, per-capita consumption has decreased so that now the average person
eats about half as many potatoes as he did forty years ago Many families
stopped buying potatoes in recent years because they considered prices too
high and the labor of washing and cleaning potatoes unpleasant. Farmers
have grown more potatoes than they could sell and government subsidies
were so unsuccessful that they finally were dropped. In 1950 our 440
million bushel production was 100 million bushels more than we required.
A large part of the excess was completely wasted because the potato con-
tains too much water to be transported economically. While prices on
potatoes were maintained by government support and subsidy, some grocers
in eastern towns sold Canadian potatoes because these cost less, even after all
the shipping and import fees were paid. The most startling area in 1950
was Aroestook County, Maine, where 15 per cent of the United States
potatoes are grown. Acreage was only half what it was four years earlier,
but the 1950 harvest was greater because yield had been raised to 475 bushels
per acre. (The United States average was 238 bushels.) Less than 40 per
cent of the 1950 Aroostook County crop was sold on the commercial market.

It is unlikely that potatoes will ever return to prominence on our tables,
yet they are a healthy and economical food. They contain a good amount
of vitamin C and certain minerals and can be readily stored for short periods
and easily prepared. Potato chips, now a 250-million dollar business which
prepares 8 per cent of all potatoes eaten in the United States, may utilize
more and more of our excess crop. And there is the grave possibility that
future population pressure may so increase land values that only foods with
a high yield per acre, like potatoes, can be purchased by people with modest

incomes.

Never within the memory of most St. Louis gardeners has there been
such a spring. It may have been hard on garden parties but it has been
wonderful for gardens. After a mild winter, warm weather came early.
The Ozark Witch-Hazel bloomed in January. Daffodils were well in bloom
by the end of February. About then it turned cool and has been coolish and
dampish a good deal of the time ever since. There has never been such a
season for lilacs which ordinarily are greeted with hot dry winds before they
are part way through their blooming season. Northerners accustomed to
the cool and misty springtimes which are best for many of our garden
favorites have revelled in the lilacs, the wood-hyacinths, and the primroses.

90 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

LAMARTINE LILACS FOR ST. LOUIS
EDGAR ANDERSON

Outside of a very narrow belt along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers
(where the rich loess soil simplifies many gardening problems), the so-called
“Lamartine Hybrids” are the only thoroughly satisfactory lilacs for the St.
Louis gardener. These are a series of named varieties produced by the
Lemoine family of Nancy, France, by crossing the common lilac with a
closely related Chinese lilac, Syringa oblata var. Giraldii. From the latter
parent they acquire an earlier season, a more open panicle of flowers, a dis-
tinctive darker cast of color as they come into bloom, and a lustier habit of
growth. To be precise, they should be catalogued under Syringa < hyacinth-
iflora, the recognized name for hybrids between these two species, but the
variety LAMARTINE was the first of these hybrids to become generally known,
and many gardeners have fallen into the easy habit of referring to the whole
set as the “Lamartine Hybrids.” It is natural to do this since most of the
single-flowered varieties introduced by Lemoine look pretty much alike, and
even an expert could be pardoned for not always being certain just which
one of the set he has before him.

Of these several varieties, DESCARTES, CATINAT, and LAMARTINE seem to
have done the best in St. Louis though MirABEAU and PascaL have also done
well. They are practical for most St. Louis gardens for a variety of reasons.
In the first place, they are true hybrids and have more hybrid vigor than
ordinary lilacs. They come through hot summers and spring droughts better
than the ordinary sorts, partly because of this vigor, partly because of their
Chinese inheritance. Even more important is the fact that they bloom
earlier than other lilacs. This year CATINAT was in bloom by April first,
and it can always be depended upon to bloom in April. The ‘“Lamartines,”
therefore, escape much of the heavy heat which usually strikes St. Louis
before the comon lilac is out of flower. Hot weather and hot drying winds
are hard on lilacs. The temperatures in the upper eighties or even in the
nineties, combined with dry winds from the Southwest, can sear the opening
flowers of the common lilac and cut short their flowering period. The
“Lamartine hybrids” flower earlier (how much earlier depends upon the
season), and they will frequently be on their way out of flower before the
first hot breaths of summer strike our gardens.

It is true that the “Lamartines” frequently flower so early that they are
caught by the frost. This is offset not only by their hybrid vigor, which
seems to pull them through a freeze in better shape, but by the fact that
even quite a bad freeze does not destroy their garden value. There is already
so much play of color in the flower, due to the deeper flush on the outside,

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 91

that the blanching and browning of frost damage are masked, in so far as
color effect at a distance is concerned. This year the ‘“Lamartine hybrids”
in the Garden came through several frosts, two snow storms, and one freeze
after they were in full bloom and have stayed attractive in the landscape
for ten days afterward, though not all of the flowering trusses would have
been in perfect condition for home decoration.

In planting “Lamartine hybrids” one should remember that they are
bigger and lankier than other varieties. They need plenty of room. If they
are not pruned back severely from time to time they shoot up and up, carry-
ing their blooms so high that they are more effective in the distance than
close at hand. That is probably where they really belong, at the back end
of a garden or the tar side of the lawn. With good feeding and a little at-
tention they will throw out great trusses of bloom and make effective
splashes of mauve and lilac in the landscape just as the Forsythias and
Narcissi are passing out of the picture.

We can nearly always count on them for a fortnight of bloom, and in a
cool spring such as that of 1953 we may hope to have them with us for

nearly a month.

ORCHIDS LIKE “OAK-BEER”
JOHN NEWTON SCATCHERD

In a recent article on orchids as house plants, | mentioned that feeding
appeared to be beneficial to the plants. Further “‘research” [don’t laugh]
confirmed the point and brought some rather interesting discoveries. I should
like to pass them along for whatever they may be worth and in hopes that
they may prove useful to any interested growers.

When I first started feeding my plants, I used a commercial fertilizer
(Hyponex) at the rate of one-fourth teaspoon to one-half gallon of water,
with the addition of four drops of phosphoric acid. This mixture stimulated
rapid growth for a time, but after about a year it was found that the plants
apparently had the peculiar faculty of being able to pick out whatever they
needed from the fertilizer and shrugging off the rest. From then on, no
amount of feeding seemed to make any difterence.

Then I came across “Oak-Beer.”” This simple concoction, made from oak
leaves and water, has proved so effective that I have completely changed my
feeding program. ‘The resultant increase in both the size and quantity of
the roots and in the size and texture of the leaves indicates that this organic
fertilizer contains something both necessary and beneficial to the plants.
Not being a botanist, | am not prepared to say what it is; but I do know that
inorganic fertilizers do not have it. It may be the large amount of tannic

92 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

acid contained in the oak leaves, or it may be certain bacteria present in the
fermentation process, or maybe a combination of both. Whatever it is, it
works.

Since | have a small collection of plants, | do not require any great
quantity of the “beer,” and I just make it up as I go along. So if the
amounts specified in the directions seem a bit odd, please understand that
simple expediency governs how much is made at a time. In other words, I
happen to have a half-gallon jug, so I make it up in half-gallon lots. A
couple of friends of mine make theirs up in old fish-bowls and therefore the

amounts are somewhat indeterminate.

The three requirements for making it are:

(1) A large-mouthed container (fish-bowl, coffee-jar, swimming pool, or
what have you).

(2) Water.

(3) Enough oak leaves (dry) to turn the water to a dark beer (or cider, if

you prefer) color.

To be more precise, | have a large-mouthed glass jar that holds about
three pints of water. Into the water I shred eight or ten dry oak leaves,
pulverizing them in my hands and removing the heavy center stem. Then
I stir the mixture a bit to wet all the leaf particles and let it stand for three
days, stirring it whenever I think of it. Within two or three hours after
mixing, the solution should begin to get quite dark as the minerals leach out
of the leaves. If it does not, it is not strong enough and more leaves must
be added. At the end of three days the “brew” is ready and I filter it (a
funnel and a piece of cotton make an excellent filter) into a one-half gallon
jug and add enough water to fill the jug.

The infusion, if you wish to call it that, is given to the plants two or
three times a month when in active growth, and they are watered with plain
water in between feedings. However, as they approach their blooming period,
I stop using the ‘‘oak-beer” and do not use it again until the buds are at
least an inch up in the sheath. With seedlings, of course, it is used con-
tinuously and its effect on them is quite spectacular. Heavy rooting, and
thicker, tougher leaves are the almost immediate results. What its long-
term effects may be, I cannot say as yet but there has been no evidence of
“burning” or any other damage.

So there you have ‘“‘Oak-Beer’’—simple, cheap and effective. It can be
made up in any quantity convenient or necessary; it can be made in any
strength desired; it is absolutely harmless; and, best of all, it is free. Try it.

Your orchids will love it.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 93

ROBERT’S CATERPILLAR CLUB FROM NEW ZEALAND
CARROLL W. DODGE

Recently we received a very interesting fungus (Cordyceps Robertsii
(Hook.) Berk.) from Te Awamuta, New Zealand, collected by Mr. G. L.
Miller and donated by Mr. H. J. Dentzman. It is a member of a large
genus, Cordyceps, of the family Clavicipitaceae. Most of the species attack
insects, filling the body with a hard vegetative mass from which a cylindric
or club-shaped stalk, or stroma, emerges and bears the reproductive struc-
tures on its upper portion. This is probably the origin of the folk tale that
it is a plant-animal, being a caterpillar or worm which turns into a plant.
It might be said with more truth that this is a case where the murderer
serves as a tombstone for the victim.

The caterpillars of our specimens are members of the moth family
Hepialidae, probably Oenetus virescens or Oc. rubroviridans (formerly placed
in the genus Hepialus or Charagria), or perhaps of Porina. Colenso, who
sent some of the early specimens of this fungus from New Zealand to Eng-
land, thought that his specimens were caterpillars of the Sphinx moth which
feeds on the roots of the sweet-potato (Convolvulus Batatas). The Ocenetus
moth lays its eggs in crevices of the bark of the rata tree (Metrosideros
florida) or between the bases ot the fronds (leaves) of the tree ferns, near
the ground. When the eggs hatch, the young caterpillars crawl to the ground
and burrow into the moist, porous, peaty soil. Apparently, the caterpillar
becomes infected with the fungus before it begins to burrow. Once in the
soil, it feeds on the young roots of the rata trees, burrowing horizontally
from one root to another. When the caterpillar is full grown it makes a
vertical burrow to the surface of the soil, then retires about two to three
inches below the surface and becomes a chrysalis in a vertical position with
the head uppermost. When the adult emerges from the chrysalis skin, it
crawls up through the vertical burrow to the surface of the soil, expands its
wings as an adult moth and feeds on the nectar of the crimson rata flowers.

Once a fungus spore has adhered to the skin of the caterpillar! it germi-
nates in the moist atmosphere of the burrow, penetrates the thin skin of the
caterpillar and slowly digests the interior, gradually replacing the muscles
and the internal organs with vegetative filaments. As the fungus develops

slowly, usually the caterpillar is full grown and has assumed the vertical

1Some authors have suggested that the fungus spores are eaten by the caterpillar and
germinate in the intestinal tract, whence it invades the other internal organs, but since the
satestines remain intact and are invaded last, this seems very unlikely. By leaving the
digestive tract to the last, the caterpillar can continue to feed and thus accumulate much
more food for the fungus before the caterpillar finally succumbs. This delay in killing the
host as long as possible is always characteristic of an efficient parasite and results from a
long series of adaptations,

94 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

position in preparation for chrysalis formation before it dies. It the cater-
pillar dies while still in a horizontal position before it is full grown, the
fungus may form a club perpendicular to the body of the caterpillar and
push up through the soil, but as it has been able to store less food materials,
the club is correspondingly shorter. It is not clear whether the firm and
brittle transformed caterpillar body serves only as a food reserve for the
formation of the fructification, or whether it also serves to carry the fungus
over a resting period in dry weather. In either case, the fructifications are
formed after prolonged rainy weather.

The fructification which is to bear the reproductive structures emer ges
from between the head and the prethorax segment of the caterpillar as a
slender stalk which grows up through the vertical burrow formed for the
emergence of the moth. When it reaches the surface of the soil, it begins
the formation of small white cushions bearing a covering of slender sperma-
tiophores, twice forked and about 20 py” long, each branch bearing a bacilli-
form spermatium (non-motile male cell, analogous to a pollen grain) about
6 2 patits tip, Between these tiny spermatial cushions may be seen pale
buff perithecial initials containing the female organs. These consist of a few
long, slender unicellular trichogynes (receptive organs, analogous to the
stigma and style of 2 flower) emerging about 20-30 p above the surface
and connecting with a swollen, somewhat coiled filament (ascogonium,
analogous to the ovary) below the outer palisade layer of the perithecial
initial. A spermatium adheres to the upper portion of the trichogyne and
probably its male nucleus enters the trichogyne and passes down into the
coil and pairs with the egg nucleus. Then short filaments grow out of the
egg cell and produce asci in the center of the developing perithecium. The
asci are cylindric or somewhat curved tubes, about 225 < 5-6 p, containing
eight filamentous ascospores about 220 >< 1.5 p, divided into about 100 cells
each. These ascospores are shot from the ascus through a hole in the top of
the perithecium (ostiole) and land on the soil. Since the ascospores easily
break apart into individual cells, we have a large number of infectious
particles not much larger than bacteria ready to adhere to the soft young
caterpillar as it crawls over the surface of the soil, before it begins to burrow.

Meanwhile as the perithecia are developing on the surface of the tip of
the stalk (or stroma), new perithecial initials and spermatial cushions are
developing just below them, while the stroma elongates slowly, eventually
becoming about 7.5-9 cm. (3.5—3.75 inches) tall above the soil. The

*u (Greek letter mu) is the symbol for micron—a unit of length, the thousandth part
of a millimeter,

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 95

Robert’s Caterpillar Club (Cordyceps Roberts.i)

96 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

perithecia become darker brown and ovoid as they mature and after the
spores are shed, they collapse and become wholly black. In the forked speci-
men shown in the figure on the left, new spermatial cushions and perithecial
initials are forming between the old shriveled and blackened peritheca in the
upper portion of the stroma. Apparently this may be repeated as long as
the reserve food supply lasts in the insect body.

Perhaps the slime (called cuticle by Cooke), formed between the young
perithecial initials and spermatial cushions, serves to attract insects and thus
secure their aid in carrying the spermatium to the trichogyne as insects
carry pollen for the flowering plants and thus secure fertilization; or perhaps
it may attract the hungry young caterpillar to take a nibble and thus bring
the body into a position where the perithecia may discharge the ascospores
directly against the body of the caterpillar to secure infection. We need
more field observations to settle this point.

This type of development with spermatial cushions on the same stroma
between the perithecial initials is very unusual in Cordyceps having been
previously reported only in the very small C. Volkiana, on lamellicorn larvae
in Brasil, which has a very short thick stalk and ellipsoidal spermatia 5 & 2 pe
Perhaps when they have been studied more carefully this type of develop-
ment will be found in the closely related species on caterpillars from
Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, such as C. Gunnii and C. Taylori
and also the Tibetan and Chinese C. sinensis. In most species of Cord yce ps,
true conidia (asexual reproductive spores) are borne on separate stalks
emerging from the insect body before the perithecial stroma emerges (Isaria
stage) and the details of fertilization are quite different.

Economic uses.—The Maoris of New Zealand used this fungus for food
under the names Hofefe, Aweto, Weri, or Anuhe. It is said to have a
pleasant nutty flavor as does the distantly related Hypomyces lactiflorun:
of New England which parasitizes mushrooms, transforming them into a
much more delicious food. When charred it was rubbed into the wound in
the process of Maori tatooing. ‘The related Cordyceps sinensis from eastern
Tibet and Szechuan has been used in Chinese medicine in the same way as
ginseng. It is so rare, however, that in the days of the Empire it was used
only by the imperial household. Most of the species of Cordyceps are too
small and rare to be used for either purpose. Though closely related to
Claviceps, a castrating parasite of grasses and cereals, Cordyceps apparently
does not produce poisonous substances such as the ergot of rye which
formerly caused epidemics of a disease known as St. Anthony’s fire in Central
Europe. These substances are still used as drugs by obstetricians and gyne-

cologists.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 97

Book REVIEWS:—

A Natural History of Western Trees. By Donald Culross Peattie. Hlus-
trated by Paul Landacre. 755 pp. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1953.
$6.00.

This is a companion volume to the author’s previous book on western
trees and a good stout companion it is. There are over 750 pages with 35
full-page illustrations. Smaller cuts showing technical details are sprinkled
liberally through the book. Like its companion, it is a skillful blending of
the technical and the general. There are condensed, scientific descriptions
of each species, and at the end there are keys, indices, and a glossary. The
bulk of the text, however, is written in an almost racy style and is a blend
of what any intelligent person might feel on seeing these interesting trees,
together with a skillful distillation of pertinent information from histories,
books of travel, and the like. It covers a vast region, all of North America
north of the Mexican Boundary and west of the 100th meridian, and the
author has been generous in including various desert shrubs and giant cacti
which a less inclusive volume might easily have omitted.

The book, however, is much more than just an expert compilation of
technical fact and appropriate anecdote. Donald Peattie was trained as a
botanist; he has made himself into a successful author. Back of all this he
is a perceptive person with a keen interest in plants, in landscapes, and in his
fellow human beings. He has travelled long and widely in the West, he has
turned what he knows about these trees over and over in his mind. The
book is full of original observation and shrewd comment. It tells the kinds
of things which a more integrated civilization than ours would want to have
included in its technical manuals. The chapter on the Mesquite brings to-
gether for the first time some notion of the astonishing way in which this
potentially useful tree has been somewhat corrupted through its long associa-
tion with man into an alarming woody weed which is having to be expertly
dealt with in various corners of the world. The California Buckeye 1s not
only accurately described; the phenomenal variation of its inflorescences
from one bush to another is commented on and there are homely references
to the attitude of many Californians toward a beautiful tree which sheds
its seed-pods and drying leaves in such un-Puritanical profusion,

The illustrations are appropriate for the text. The full-page ones give
telling indications of what these trees actually seem like in the landscapes to
which they are native. The only ones which do not quite come off are those
of eastern species which the artist has evidently not seen in the field, or at
least not seen often enough. Of these, the one on the Bur Oak might better
have been left out; it is wholly out of character.—E.A.

98 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Natural Communities. By Lee R. Dice. 559 pp. University of Michigan
Press, Ann Arbor, 1952. $5.50.

This authoritative volume is so clearly written that it will interest a
much wider public than the technical group for which it was primarily
intended. The amateur naturalist with enough drive to read a monograph
which he does not wholly understand, the intellectually keen sportsman, the
serious Conservationist, would all gain from prolonged exposure to this book.
To such people it will bring an orderly framework on which to organize their
field observations and much of their general understanding of nature. The
technical specialise likewise will find it particularly useful for an over-all
orientation to the entire subject: what communities of plants and animals
are, how to study them, how to analyze their growth and decline, how to
think about them. It is so wide in scope that in spite of its 559 pages some
aspects of the subject receive pretty short notice. The complicated question
of soil profiles, for instance, is dealt with in less than a page. There are 52
diagrams, mostly original, many of them simple graphs. There is a subject
index, but scholars may at times be frustrated by the complete absence of
any author index or substitute for it. Not even Darwin makes the Index
though represented in the bibliography.—E.A.

The Cacti of Arizona. By Lyman Benson. 134 pp. University of Arizona
Press, Tucson, 1950. $4.00.

This beautiful little book of 134 pages is the second edition of the paper-
covered bulletin one used to get from the University of Arizona for the in-
credible price of one dollar. In the process of having its face lifted the price
has been quadrupled. Though this will be an unpleasant shock to some, it
is not at all out of line with present-day publishing costs. The new format
is Superior in style. There is an attractive stiff cover, a tasteful dust jacket,
and much nicer type throughout than in the old bulletin. The tabular
matter has been extended and rearranged. One of the greatest improvements
has been to increase the clear line drawings which demonstrate various
technical details of cactus flowers and cactus plants. The bulk of the changes
in the text are highly technical and relate to Dr. Benson’s continuing interest
in the classification of southwestern cacti. Many of the names have been
changed and some of the species of the first edition are now reduced to
varietal status. [he most unfortunate feature of the new edition is that
there is no easy way in which the ordinary botanist (let alone a rank amateur )
can find the relation between the old set of names and the new. There is no
index but there are a table of contents and lists of illustrations (29 plates,
several of them colored) and 33 text-figures, each one an attractive grouping

of line drawings or outline maps.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 99

Though the bulk of the book is composed of the dry bones of scholar-
ship, these bones have been brought together with professional competence
and are logically assembled into an articulated whole. For the ordinary
biologist the most valuable features of the book are the clear illustrations,
the distribution maps, and the concise notes about use, distribution, and the

like. —E.A.

A Revision of the North American Species of Lathyrus. By C. Leo
Hitchcock. University of Washington Publications in Biology. Vol. 15,
pp. 1-104. November, 1952. $2.50.

This technical monograph is published as a nicely-put-together volume
with stiff paper covers. For the American relatives of the sweet-pea it
presents in compact and orderly fashion a description of the thirty-nine
species growing wild in North America, as well as numerous sub-species and
several varieties. There are 9 plates with 41 sets of line drawings, illustrating
virtually all the species; 10 maps showing their distribution; and 2 charts
demonstrating the relationships of the species and the results obtained from
various attempts to hybridize them experimentally with each other. Experi-
mental work with these beautiful little plants is said to be well under way,
and there are brief summaries of chromosome numbers and hybridization
experiments.

The maps have not been prepared with the care of the rest of the publi-
cation; in studying the distribution of the Middle Western species one is not
always sure whether the species in question occurs in Missouri or whether
the little dots merely indicate the positions of St. Louis and Kansas City.
Missourians who are proud of their state’s interesting flora will be distressed
to see that the presence in Missouri of four of these species was not indicated
in the material studied by Dr. Hitchcock. These are minor matters. Basic
information about the kinds of Lathyrus has been brought together effi-
ciently in a form which will make it generally useful to other scholars. Even
the intelligent amateur will be able, through the clear line drawings, the
discussions, and the maps, to enlarge his understanding of these charming

little plants.—E.A.

Those who sowed grass seed last fall and took good care of it until the
rains finally came were in luck. The mild winter let it grow almost un-
checked by severe cold. The cool rainy spring has been just what lawn
grass would like to have every year. Never have new plantings of grass
looked as promising as they do this May.

100 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

NOTES

The annual flower sermon, provided for in the will of Henry Shaw, was
preached at Christ Church Cathedral, on Sunday, April 26, by Dr. William
G. Pollard, Executive Director of the Unit of Nuclear Studies, Oak Ridge,
Tenn.

Mr. Paul H. Allen, Plant Collector to the Garden, who for the last several
years has been in charge of the Esquinas Experiment Station, Palmar Sur,
Costa Rica, has accepted a position as Director of the Fairchild Tropical
Garden, Coconut Grove, Florida.

The Garden Club of St. Louis has recently sent a check to the Garden
library to be used in rebinding some rare old book in memory of Mrs. Edward
J. Walsh, one of the charter members. This is the third such contribution
from the St. Louis Garden Club, the other two being in memory of Dr.

Hermann von Schrenk and Mr. Peter Seltzer.

Several communities in St. Louis and Franklin counties cooperated in an
Easter Sunrise Service at the Arboretum, the morning of April 5. It was an
inter-denominational, inter-racial religious service with various churches
cooperating. The staff of the Arboretum prepared a large wooden cross for
the event which was held on the hill-top parking lot adjacent to the Trail
House. Though Easter Day was mostly raw and miserable, it opened with
a spectacular sunrise, and the simple service, with meadows of blooming

narcissi in the background, was most impressive and was very well attended.

Recent visitors to the Garden library and herbarium include the follow-
ing: Dr. Gerald B. Ownbey, of University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; Dr.
K. H. Reichinger, of the Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria; Dr.
Christian Bay, Librarian Emeritus of John Crerar Library, Chicago; Dr.
Mildred Mathias, of University of California, Los Angeles; Dr. Reid Moran,
of Stanford University, Calif.; Dr. C. R. Weaver and Dr. E. T. Hibbs, of
Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, Wooster, Ohio; Mr. and Mrs. Richard
Froeschner, of lowa State College, Ames; Mr. H. R. Kemmerer, of University
of Illinois, Urbana; Dr. J. D. Dwyer, of Siena College, Albany, N. Y.; Dr.
John J. Finan, of the Institute of American Affairs, Department of State,
Washington, D. C.; Dr. Alicia Lourteig, of the Instituto Darwinion, San
Isidro, Argentina; Dr. Charles B. Heiser and Dr. Charles W. Hagen, of
Indiana University, Bloomington, accompanied by a group of nine botany
students from that university; Mr. Paul H. Allen, of Fairchild Tropical
Garden, Coconut Grove, Florida; Dr. G. A. L. Mehlquist, of University of
Connecticut, Storrs; Dr. R. Ruggles Gates, of the Museum of Anthropology,
Harvard University; Dr. A. C. Joshii, of the Punjab School for Teachers,

Punjab, India.

THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

S fo obs ARR a Od 100121 eee Se esse ere ___... President
Daniel K. Catlin. _. Vice-President
Eugene Pettus. = Second Vice-President

Dudley French George T. Moore

Henry Hitchcock A. Wessel Shapleigh

Richard J. Lockwood Ethan A. H. Shepley

Robert Brookings Smith

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS

Arthur H. Compton Chancellor, Washington University
Joseph M. Darst Mayor of the City of St. Louis
Stratford L. Morton. ------ President, St. Louis Academy of Science
Arthut:G. Lichtenbeteetics.2 2 Bishop of the Diocese of Missouri
Oscar Enrnardt so ae President, Board of Education of St. Louis
eral ted st ee eee Secretary
STAFF
George T. Moore... EE a or Emeritus Director
Ren Sp CONG A TN economies saad _..... Acting Director
Edgar: Anderton se ete Assistant Director
Leicester B. Faust sosiass bee Executive Assistant
Carroll W.. Dodge... = _ Mycologist
Robert E. Woodson, Jr..--.-------------------------------------—--------— Coriok oe Herbarium
Henry N. Andrews_.---..--- ee eee anise nis Paleopotanist
Rolla M. Tryon._..------------------------—-—----—------------- Assistant ene iat Herbarium
Hugh C. Canes: A = Caen Museum of Economic Plants
George B. Van oleae, eR eens en ee re oe Honorary Curator of Grasses
Julian A. Steyermark._-.---..------------------------- _...Honorary Research Associate
Well ’C. Hormet.. ne Librarian and Editor
Gerald Ulrici Business Manager
eoree FL. -P ne ae re Lad spneeaaaee ae ___.... Superintendent
Paul A. Kohl. 2-2. Floriculturist
Ladislaus Cutak Horticulturist in charge of Conservatories
Frederick G:. Meyer_.—...........-- ssh niesctauetrecteage ts ae _Dendrologist
Kenneth A. Smith__.._...-----------------------------—-------—-- ------- 22 nnnn Engineer
Aaoust P. Beilminn.... inaues , ahs Aaienin Gray Summit
ours Gr. Brenner oc Assistant Manager of the Arboretum
G. R. Lowry------- Sa a a chien er ot In charge of Orchids

SOME FACTS ABOUT THE GARDEN

The Missouri Botanical Garden was opened to the public by Mr.
Henry Shaw about 1860. From that date until his death in 1889 it
was maintained under his personal direction. Although popularly
known as “Shaw’s Garden” the name Missouri Botanical Garden
was chosen by Mr. Shaw and he definitely indicated that he wished
it called by that name. The Garden passed at his death into the
hands of a Board of Trustees, designated in Mr. Shaw’s will, and
the Board so constituted, exclusive of certain ex-officio members,
is self-perpetuating. By a further provision of the will the immedi-
ate direction of the Garden is vested in a Director, appointed by
the Board. The Garden receives no support from city or state but
is maintained almost exclusively from the estate left by Henry
Shaw. Since 1939 many Garden Clubs and interested individuals
have contributed to a “Friends of the Garden Fund” which is used
in developing the new Arboretum, located at Gray Summit, Mo.
The Arboretum (1) serves as a source of plants, trees and shrubs
for the city Garden; (2) affords areas for gradually establishing
a pinetum, a wild-flower reservation and various other features
on a scale not possible in the city; (3) provides greenhouses for

some 50,000 orchid plants.

The city Garden comprises 75 acres, where about 12,000 species
of plants are grown, both out of doors and under glass. It is open
every day in the year except New Year’s Day and Christmas; week
days, 8:00 a. m. until 7:00 p. m.; Sundays, 10:00 a. m. until 7:00
p.m. The greenhouses are closed every day at 5:00 p. m.

The main entrance to the Garden is at Tower Grove and Flora
Place, on the Sarah bus line (No. 42). The Southampton buses
(No. 80), direct from downtown, pass within three blocks of the

main entrance.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL
GARDEN BULLETIN

CONTENTS

Balkan Ivy Indian Paint-brushes at the Arboretum
Meet William Withering Jointed Goatgrass
Notes

/olume XLI June, 1953 Number 6

Cover: Rumanian Ivy in the Mausoleum Grove.

Office of publication: 306 E. Simmons Street, Galesburg, Illinois.

Editorial Office: Missouri Botanical Garden, 2315 Tower Grove Avenue,
St. Louis, 10, Missouri.

Published monthly except July and August by the Board of Trustees of the
Missouri Botanical Garden. Subscription price: $2.50 a year.

Entered as second-class matter January 26, 1942, at the post-office at Gales-
burg, Illinois, under the Act of March 3, 1879.

Please: Do not discard a copy of the Bulletin. If you have no further use for yours
pass it along to a friend or return it to the Garden. Return postage will
be guaranteed.

Missour1 Botanical
Garden Bulletin

Vol. XLI JUNE, 1953 No. 6

BALKAN IVY
EDGAR ANDERSON

Of all the new plants introduced into cultivation by the Garden none
has made more of a place for itself in the Garden’s own economy than the
two strains of ivy from the Balkans, “MBG Bulgaria” and “MBG Rumania.”
They were brought to this country in 1934 and were formally introduced
and named in the BULLETIN for March, 1945. In addition to the hardiness
and vigor which are making them generally more acceptable in the Middle
West than any other ivy, they have three features which have rade them
outstanding in the Garden itself. They bring green into the winter land-
scape; they seem in keeping with our old stone walls and iron fences; they
reduce maintenance expense.

Hardiness, which is their most outstanding characteristic, is unfortunately
something which only time can test. They look very similar to most other
ivies. It takes a hard winter to demonstrate the stuff they are made of.
Though they were not named and formally introduced until they had under-
gone extensive trial there is nothing in their appearance to indicate remark-
able hardiness. Since there were already in the St. Louis area a number of
other ivies which are reasonably hardy, public demand for the two new
varieties was very slight after their introduction in 1934. It was not until
many old vines of these other varieties were either killed to the ground (or
at least badly damaged) in the winter of 1951-52 that the gardening public
began to take an active interest. The new ivy came through that test, as
they have all others, with flying colors and we can now unhesitatingly
recommend them as ironclad for the difficult St. Louis climate.

So hardy is ““MBG Bulgaria” that the oldest plantings of this variety
have now assumed mature form, and St. Louisans can now see for the first
time what a fully mature ivy plant really looks like. Few plants are so
dramatic in their changes from youth to maturity. Young vines of ivy do
not branch; they root readily; their leaves are broad; and they do not flower.
Left to themselves they climb up trees or walls, and when they reach a height
of about ten or twenty feet above ground they begin to put out fruiting

(101)

102 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

ay

Fig. 1. The oldest vine of “MBG Bulgaria” in the Garden as it appeared in the
winter of 1952-53. Mr. Shaw’s old country home, Tower Grove

(usually now
called the “Old Residence’), is in the background.

Visitors sometimes ask if these
ivy vines harm the trees on which they are growing. There is apparently no injury
In England cone frequently sees
old oaks and elms which have been hung with ivy for a century or more. One of
the charming and characteristic features of the English winter landscape is the
shining green leaves of the ivy high overhead in the trees which line hedgerows
and roadsides.

if the tree is large enough for such a heavy load.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 103

Fig. 2. “MBG Rumania’ planted around a tool house at the back of a city lot where

the shade, the poor soil, and city conditions had previously made it almost impossible to
grow any attractive ground cover,

branches which are strikingly different in character. Few of the other kinds
of ivy ever survive to this point in the St. Louis area. Although an occasional
vine in a very sheltered spot has flowered and even produced fruit, none that
we know of have developed the big vigorous fruiting branches which are so
characteristic of ivy in the places where it is native. It is hard to believe
that one of these branches came from the same plant as the juvenile form
with which we are all familiar. It looks different enough to have come from
another kind of plant altogether. The fruiting branches are stiff and woody,
and they branch out vigorously at right angles to the tree on which the ivy
is growing. They are very difficult to root. The mature form branches and
rebranches, making a great vigorous bushy growth; the leaves are narrow;
and every autumn this whole portion of the plant is covered with small
greenish flowers in tight little clusters.

The accompanying illustration (fig. 1) shows the vigorous fruiting
branches which have now developed on the plantings made in the Garden in
1936-37. They increase winter color in that part of the Garden and are

particularly attractive when there is sleet or snow to contrast with the dark

104 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Fig. 3. The best ground cover for a shady area in St. Louis, the Balkan Ivy, introduced
by the Garden under the name of “MBG Bulgaria.” Note the large leaves, all of an even
height and close to horizontal so that they form a smooth green carpet. As shown in the
background, the ivy is climbing up the trees; in another five or ten years it will branch
out into its mature form.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 105

green leaves of the ivy. They are a little too rampant and informal for all
types of gardens but for us they fit in pleasingly with Mr. Shaw’s old build-
ings and iron fences. The grounds adjoining the Old Residence and_ the
Mausoleum are now as attractive in winter as in summer; vigerous ivy
branches spread out here and there overhead. In the Mausoleum grounds the
ivy has proved a perfect companion for our snowdrop collection which is
now multiplying at a great rate. In late winter and early spring snowdrops
by the thousands make a mass display against the dark foil of the ivy and
extend our outside blooming season into February and March.

Of the two ivies introduced by the Garden, “MBG Rumania” is the more
tolerant of sun and of hot dry places. In other situations “MBG Bulgaria”
is to be preferred. Compared with ordinary English Ivy, it has slightly larger
leaves and in a well-established planting it exhibits a pleasing regularity.
All the leaves are held at about the same height and in the same horizontal
position, giving the effect of a smooth even green carpet. One of its chief
garden merits is the rapidity with which it puts out its new crop of leaves in
the late spring. It was bred for a violent climate, much like our own. The
new leaves come out amazingly fast and virtually all at once. One week
there is no sign of them; a week later they are popping out all over the place;
ten days later and the fresh crop of leafage has covered the whole plot, the
old ones just barely showing through.

“MBG Bulgaria” is also outstanding in the ease with which it can be
grown from cuttings. Ina test made at the Garden some years ago, the yield
of rooted cuttings per foot of vine was markedly higher with it than with
any other of the dozen or so strains which were tested. Cuttings can be
taken at any time but early spring and early fall are the best. If one has a
cold-frame or cool greenhouse the simplest way is just to peg down long
branches of the ivy in the carly fall, covering them well above the level of
the stems with sand or vermiculite and then cutting them apart and potting
them up as separate plants late in the winter. By springtime one will have
pots of vigorous little plants all ready to set out.

For those without greenhouse facilities of any sort, the simplest thing to
do is to bring short ivy branches into the house in late winter and put them
in jars of water on the window-sill. They will send out roots in the water
and can be set outdoors in early spring. Another easy way to start them is
to prepare the place they are going and in early spring to peg down long
whips of ivy firmly to the ground, using strong wire hair-pins to keep them
held tightly against the earth. These horizontal branches are then covered
with soil and any light mulching material until all the branches are covered
up and even some of the leaves. If the bed is then kept well watered, the

ivies will be well enough established so that they will come through a sum-

106 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Fig. 4. View down the valley from the Rila Monastery, Bulgaria. ‘MBG Bulgaria”

was collected in the beech woods beyond the building.

mer drought (or what is worse a drought which coincides with the owner’s
vacation) without any further attention.

There is only one warning. THESE IVIES SHOULD NOT BE SENT
TO GARDENS IN THE SOUTH. They came from a climate about like
that of Little Rock, Arkansas. Were they to be grown in northern Mississippi
or central Arkansas they would be even more at home there than they are
here. Their purple-green berries are relished by birds and they would soon
be sown from one end of the South to another and would wind up by being

as much of a pest as is the Japanese Honeysuckle.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 107

MEET WILLIAM WITHERING
ALICE F. TRYON

The discoveries of science using the cyclotron, microscope, fluoroscope
and like instruments are most impressive and newsworthy. However, the
observations and achievements without benefit of elaborate tools have been
none the less great. The contributions of scientists as Jean Henri Fabre,
Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin have been through keen observation,
careful record and correlated thought. William Withering, eighteenth-
century English physician, belongs to this group for his observations and
case records on the use of Digitalis—the powerful drug so vital to the treat-
ment of heart and kidney diseases.

William Withering was born at Wellington, in Shropshire, England, in
1741. His father an apothecary, his uncle a physician, and the Reverend
Henry Wood supplied his early training until he was prepared to enter the
University of Edinburgh in 1762. Four years later he presented a thesis on
“De Angina Gangrenosa” and he received his M.D. Withering was very
popular in his first practice at Stafford but it was unprofitable and he left
to take over an established office in Birmingham, although he continued a
weekly visit to the Stafford Infirmary. The Lunar Society, which met in
Birmingham monthly on the full of the moon, was attended by Withering
and other eminent scientists as Priestley the chemist and Watt the inventor
of the steam engine. The exchange of ideas at these meetings must have
been a powerful stimulus for these men and it was here that Withering
presented his paper, “On the death and burial of Phlogiston,” a subject which
Priestley explored at great length. His acquaintances and journeys extended
from Birmingham to London and the Continent but he was devoted to
England. Even when pleurisy and pulmonary ailments forced him to win-
ter in Lisbon he was discontented until he returned to Edgbaston, suburb of
Birmingham, where he busied himself with a revision of his flora which he
completed a few years before his death in 1799.

Withering is reputed to have had the best practice outside of Londen
and yet he devoted time each day to advise charity cases which totalled be-
tween two and three thousand patients each year. In addition to this active
medical career he found time for work in other sciences which is scarcely
of less merit than his medical accomplishments. His botanical publica-
tion bears the long title, “A botanical arrangement of all the vegetables
naturally growing in Britain, with descriptions of the genera and species
according to the system of the celebrated Linnaeus.” This was issued as a
two-volume work in 1776 and was, as the title suggests, a translation from

Linnaeus of the genera and species occurring in the British flora. The pov-

108 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Digitalis purpurea vulgaris.
Common purple Foxglove.

Stately spikes of purple, rose-pink and white Foxglove make an attractive back-border
planting. The clusters of bell-shaped flowers on 2-4 foot stalks tower above masses of
luxuriant, closely arranged leaves. The irregular form of the flowers with 3 of the 5
corolla lobes slightly longer and spotted within the throat gives a clue to its place in the
Figwort or Scrophulariaceae family. Foxgloves are easily grown and do best in light, en-
riched, not-too-dry soil and semi-shade. They are biennials and should be sown early in the
spring. Their crowns will remain green all winter and they will flower the second year in
late May or June. Some 18 species are native to Europe and Asia although many horticultural
verieties have been developed. A handsome colored, folio-sized monograph of Digitalis by
the English botanist, John Lindley, shows several striking yellow-flowered species from Asia
and a tinv pink form, D. minor B from Spain. The origin of the name Foxglove is uncer-
tain but possibly may be a corruption from folk, meaning little folk or fairies’ gloves. The
Latin name Digitalis from digitus, meaning a finger, was applied centuries ago by the German
herbalist, Fuchs. Illustration from ‘“Parkinson’s Theatrum Botanicum” of 1629.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 109

ularity of the first edition resulted in a second edition of three volumes in
1787 and a third of four volumes in 1796. A copy of the latter work 1s in
the Garden library and supplies us with data on the medicinal use of native
plants as well as Withering’s own observations on botany, such as the fol-
lowing on the Royal Fern, Osmunda regalis:
Impressions of the leaves are frequent in the nodules of ircn stone found in

Coalbrook Dale Iron works. It is the only species of an indigenous vegetable which

I have ever seen in a fossil state. But it is a native of Virginia also. All the other

impressions of Filices, which I have seen on ironstone, seem to be those of American

plants. The root boiled in water is very slimy, and is used in the North of Europe

to stiffen linen instead of starch.
This flora was continued by Withering’s son and others until as late as 1848.
Withering was honored by his contemporary, the French botanist L’Héritier,
who proposed the genus Witheringia for a group of plants of the Nightshade
Family.

His interest in chemistry and mineralogy stemmed from his early
college studies and was undoubtedly stimulated by his associations with
Priestley. Some of the papers he presented are: ‘Experiments on the different

>

kinds of marle found in Staffordshire”, “Analysis of a hot spring in Portugal”
and “Experiments on the Terra Ponderosa.””. The name Witherite has since
been applied to the mineral which is chemically known as BaCOy, native
barium carbonate, which he noted as Terra Ponderosa.

Withering’s original paper entitled, ““An account of the Foxglove, and
some medical uses with practical remarks on dropsy, and other diseases,”
published in 1785, is one of the rare volumes in the Garden library. In this
browned and frayed copy written in the quaint style and lettering of the
period we find the observations of a scientist which transcends his time. A
review of this old account gives us an insight to scientific views and medical
practices of the day. Like our antihistamine and Penicillin, Digitalis gained
rapid popularity but was at first prescribed and used without caution. There
being no regulations or controls on the drug at that time, Withering under-
took to write his account in order to caution against its dangers and to
present his experiences using it over a period of ten years. This is based on

163 cases of his own and some 50 of his colleagues’-—some in sufficient detail

to permit modern diagnoses. More than a hundred of these patients responded
favorably to Digitalis. Several cases are included where death resulted before
the drug was administered and advice pertaining to the interpretation of
these is given particular note. Some of the cases might be construed as
revealing a primitive state of eighteenth century medical practices but they
are hardly a fair basis on which to judge for, as Withering states, physicians
were seldom consulted in cases of chronic diseases until all the usual remedies

failed and those who were saved were snatched from destruction.

110 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

These are records for the most part of cases in which Digitalis was used
in treatment of Dropsy although as case 121 clearly indicates, Withering
was aware of its action on the heart.

August 25th. TL W. , Esq; AEt, 50. A free liver, diseased
visera, belly very tense, and much swollen; fluctuation perceptible, but the swelling
circumscribed; pulse 132. This gentleman was under the care of my very worthy
friend Dr. Ash, who, having tried various modes of cure to no purpose, asked me if
! thought the Digitalis would answer in this case. I replied that it would not, for
I had never seen it effectual where the swelling appeared very tense and circumscribéd.
It was tried however, but did not lessen the swelling. I mention this case, to intro-
duce the above remark, and also to point out the great effect the Digitalis has upon
the action of the heart; for the pulse came down to 96. He was afterward tapped,
and continued, for some time under our joint attendance, but the pulse never became
quicker, nor did the swelling return.

From these cases we can compile a considerable list of herbs which With-
ering used in addition to Digitalis—dandelion, seneka, squills, jallapa, gentian,
garlic, rhubarb, burdock, opium, myrrh, aloe, ginger and parsley. Case 12
illustrates the common practice wherein three or four preparations were
prescribed and if these did not improve the condition several more were tried
and if there was still no response Digitalis was used as the last resort.

September 12th. Miss C_______ of T_______, AErt. 48. An ovarium dropsy,
and anasarcous legs and thighs. For three months in the beginning of this year she
had been under the care of Dr. Darwin, who at different times had given her blue
vitriol, elaterium, and calomel; decoction of pareira brava, and guiacum wood, with
tincture of cantharides; oxymel of squills, decoction of parsley roots, &c. Finding
no relief, she discontinued the use of medicines, until the urgency of her symptoms
induced her to ask my advice about the end of August. She was greatly emaciated,
and had almost a total loss of appetite. I first tried small doses of Merc. sublim.
corr. in solution, with decoction of burdock roots, and blisters to the thighs. No
advantage attending the use of this plan, I directed a decoction of Fol. Digit. a dram
and a half to a pint; one ounce to be taken twice a day. It presently reduced the
anasarcous swellings, but made no alteration in the distension of the abdomen.
Withering’s remarks in opposition to the notion that the external con-

figuration of plants indicate the diseases they are adapted to cure leads one
to suspect that the old Doctrine of Signatures was not completely out of
vogue. This fifteenth-century belief that plants in their form, scent or
color depict the diseases they will cure viz.—the spotted, lung-shaped leaves
of the Lungwort, Pulmonaria, indicate that it will cure diseases of the lungs
—-came into popularity in England along with alchemy, astrology and like
magic.

There was much to be learned about plants during Withering’s time.
This was a period of great botanical activity. The system of plant classifi-
cation that Linnaeus presented in 1753 was beginning to penetrate and
doctors were exploring the simples which were in general household use.
How could the virtues of these plants be detected? Withering makes three
suggestions in answer to this problem. The first, and one which he states

received little attention, is by observing their effects upon insects and

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 111

quadrupeds. One of the methods of determining the potency of Digitalis
at the present time is by testing in such a manner. The method described
in the United States Pharmacopoeia is a pigeon assay in which dilutions of
a tincture of the drug are injected into the bird at five-minute intervals
until the heart ceases to beat. This time is then compared with that of the
U.S.P. Digitalis reference standard. The test was formerly conducted on
frogs. A second method he suggested of evaluating herbs is by analogy or
deduction from the already known powers of some of their congeners. How-
ever, the doubt cast by Withering’s own views that this method can be
perfected only as we learn the true natural relationships of plants was cer-
tainly appropriate in his day and still is applicable. A branch of botany,
taxonomy, is primarily devoted to the search for ways in which natural
relationships can be established. The third method Withering suggests is of
greatest interest for this he later explains is the way he came upon Digitalis
—from the empirical usage and experience of the populace. Withering did
not discover the herb himself. He merely recognized a good thing when he
saw it. Several references on Digitalis mention the following story as a
legend, however, the following is taken from Withering’s account:
In the year 1775, my opinion was asked concerning a family receipt for the cure
of the dropsy. I was told that it had long been kept a secret by an old woman in
Shropshire, who had sometimes made cures after the more regular practitioners had
failed. I was informed also, that the effects produced were violent vomiting and
purging; for the diuretic effects seem to have been overlooked. This medicine was
composed of twenty or more different herbs; but it was not very difficult for one

conversant in these subjects, to perceive, that the active herb could be no other than
the Foxglove.

Readers of George Eliot will recall how Silas Marner, a century later, cured
a woman suffering from heart disease and dropsy using Foxglove after the
doctor failed. Scientists are keenly aware of the knowledge of native
herbalists and today search the wilds of South America and Africa to learn
of preparations as Curare and Strophanthus used by peoples we might once
have regarded as wholly uninformed.

During the past 150 years much has been learned about Digitalis.
Through selection and plant-breeding programs the quality of the drug-
producing plants has been improved. Methods of commercial production
have been studied in central Europe, India and the United States. Chemical
analyses have shown Digitalis to consist of four glucosides—Digitoxin,
Digitalin, Digitalein and Digitonin and these have been isolated and purified
so that the individual glucoside can be administered. Withering’s methods
have been improved and refined but the test which he proposed in the intro-
duction of his account, a test which all scientific accomplishments must meet,
has surely been satisfied.

After all, in spite of epinicn, prejudice, or error, Time will fix the real value

upon this discovery, and determine whether I have imposed upon myself and others,
or contributed to the benefit of science and mankind.

112 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Indian Paint-brush on the Arboretum glade

OF INDIAN PAINT-BRUSHES AT THE ARBORETUM
LOUIS G. BRENNER

Most spectacular of recent introductions into the Wildflower Garden is
the Indian Paint-brush (Castilleja coccinea) which has added brilliant splashes
of red-orange to the present colorful glade flora. The plants came into
bloom in mid-April, and it is expected that they will flower until the end of
May. They have made particularly striking displays where they have mingled
with vigorous clumps of Birds-foot Violet. In addition to forming brilliant
masses of color, the Indian Paint-brush is an interesting plant in that the
flowers themselves are comparatively inconspicuous. The bright displav_ is
almost entirely created by leafy-bracts surrounding the true flower which is

tubular-shaped and greenish-yellow.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 113

Because the Indian Paint-brush is a habitant of upland prairies and glades
its introduction onto a glade in the Wildflower Garden was easily accom-
plished by broadcasting the tiny seed. It has been found that at least two
years are usually required for the plants to come to bloom from seed. It has
also been observed that almost invariably the plant will associate itself
intimately with a clump of the Glade Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia inis-
souriensis), suggesting that the Paint-brush may practice partial parasitism
as do other closely related plants such as the False Foxglove (Gerardia), and
Wood Betony (Pedicularis).

At present the Indian Paint-brush may be found on either side of Boulder
Trail as it crosses the glade, and it is hoped that this introduction may spread

through self-seeding to make the whole glade aglow in future years.

The Fringe Tree.-—A native American shrub which should receive more
attention from plant breeders and gardeners is the Fringe Tree, Chionanthus
virginica. The Garden has a fine collection of these shrubs, particularly
around the eastern end of the North American Tract where they were set
out over forty years ago and have had to shift for themselves much of the
time. When out of bloom they are a not-ungraceful shrub with simple
largish leaves of a dull green. They make a good screen or background but
are not particularly exciting. When in bloom during May they are a foamy
fountain of white and pale green, covered with delicate blooms over the
entire bush. Their fragrance is delightful and they make an effective back-
ground for almost any other flowers because of their neutral color.

The Fringe Tree would repay further study. In the Garden’s collection
there is striking variation from bush to bush. While all of them are at-
tractive, some are much more so than others and one or two are worth
putting on the market as named varieties. Some of them have their blossoms
in great sprays of bloom roughly as large as a bushel-basket. In one form
these are borne at the end of picturesque curving branches. Others have
their blossoms in neat little sprays sprinkled here and there over the bush.

When they are in full flower the blooms of the Fringe Tree are very
effective for large flower arrangements. They keep well and though they
are fragrant the scent is not too heavy for a living-room. The soft greenish
white of the blossoms is particularly attractive with pale pink. If, for
instance, you have an azalea which comes close to magenta, to make you
really proud of it try displaying it against a background of Fringe Tree
blossoms. All the coarseness will disappear and it will seem to be a clear

rosy pink.

114 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

JOINTED GOATGRASS
GEORGE B. VAN SCHAACK

Noted in St. Louis for the first time a year ago, Jointed Goatgrass
(Aegilops cylindrica Host) again last month bordered the sidewalks along
Shaw Boulevard just west of Kingshighway. Covering even larger areas than
last year, it is now growing so thickly as to indicate a residence of several
years. The plant is a wanderer from the Mediterranean, native at least in
the Balkan Peninsula and southern Russia, and widely spread as a weed. Un-
doubtedly, this colony developed from seed dropped from packing material,
probably wine-case packing, for there are two restaurants only a block away
and this plant is found in the wine areas of Italy.

The flowering shoots of Jointed Goatgrass are about a foot and a half
high, terminated by a rather stiff, hard cylinder, half as thick as a lead
pencil. This cylinder is marked at intervals of about half an inch by circu-
lar rings; these are the joints at which the inflorescence breaks after the seed
is matured. The part between each two adjacent joints contains a tightly
compressed group of two to five flowers more or less hidden in a cavity of
the stem by a closely appressed leaf-like scale. From each of the upper groups
of flowers extend upward two or more awns, long, needle-like bristles one to
three inches long. In the illustration, taken from Host’s ‘“Gramineae,”
wherein the plant was first described, the awns appear somewhat shorter
than in most of the plants to be found in St. Louis. The right-hand spike
in the figure illustrates how the scales covering the flower groups bend out-
ward during the period of pollination.

Unless you are a botanist or someone interested in the unusualness of the
commonplace you probably wouldn’t have given the plants on Shaw Boule-
vard a second look, for in a group they present a rather stiff and unbending
appearance. But although Jointed Goatgrass lacks the grace of bluegrass or
the elegance of the so-called Eulalia it has good family connections; it is
first cousin of one of the immediate ancestors of our cultivated wheats. Half
of its genetic material is found also in spelt, a native wheat of southeastern
Europe; there is much evidence that hybrids of spelt and other primitive
wheats gave rise to our modern cereal.

As a name Jointed Goatgrass is about as euphonious as the plant is grace-
ful. Its more euphonious Latin name, Aegilops (pronounced e-ji-lops), is
borrowed from the Greek; Theophrastus used it for a kind of wild oat. The
Greeks had also a word aegilos, “an herb of which goats are fond.” It is
not clear whether this herb was the same as Aegilops, but probably either
confusion of the two or their identity accounts for the common name, Goat-
grass.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Aegilops cylindrica Host
Copied from plate 7 of Volume 2 of Host’s “Icones et Descriptiones Graminum
Austriacorum” published in Vienna in 1802. This four-volume work, devoted to
the grasses of the Austrian provinces, is one of the many rare and valuable folios in
the Garden library.

116 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

NOTES

The Meramec River Basin Resources Committee held a meeting in the
assembly room at the main gate of the Arboretum on May 9.

Two of the John Simon Guggenheim fellowships which are granted to
“persons of unusual capacity for scholarly research . . .” have been awarded
for the ensuing year to former students in the Henry Shaw School of Botany:
Dr. Charles B. Heiser, Associate Professor of Botany, Indiana University;
and Dr. Gerald B. Ownbey, Associate Professor of Botany, University of
Minnesota.

The second number of Volume XL of the ANNALS OF THE Missouri
BoTANICAL GARDEN has recently been issued with contents as follows: A
Contribution to the Lichen Flora of Arizona and New Mexico, by Emanual
D. Rudolph; The Analysis of Suspected Hybrids, as illustrated by Berberis
< gladwynensis, by Edgar Anderson; Variation in Cob Morphology among
Certain Archaeological and Ethnological Races of Maize, by Norton H.
Nickerson; Cytology, Morphology, and Systematic Relationships of Del-
phinium >< Belladonna Hort. ex Bergm., by Marilyn Amy Gage.

Recent visitors to the Garden library and herbarium include: Prof. J.
Lanjouw, of the University of Utrecht, Holland; Mr. Jean T. Delacour, of
the Los Angeles County Museum of Science, History and Arts, Los Angeles,
Calif.; Miss Ruth Wood, of Springfield High School, Springfield, Ill., ac-
companied by a group of her students in botany; Dr. Ruth B. Thomas, of
James Milliken University, Decatur, Ill.; Mr. George E. McCluer, landscape
architect, of Buffalo, N. Y.; Mr. Hsuan Keng, of the department of botany,
Taiwan University, Taipeh, Taiwan, Formosa; botany class of Greenville
College, Greenville, Ill., conducted by their teacher, Mr. John H. Ayers.

At the commencement of Washington University, June 10, advanced
degrees were conferred upon the following students in the Henry Shaw
School of Botany: Master of Arts—Robert J. Gillespie, Jr., A.B. Washington
University (Plant Breeding); Frank Winstead Martin, B.S. Pharmacy, St.
Louis College of Pharmacy; William H. von Meyer, A.B. Washington Uni-
versity (Microbiology); Dorothy E. Ober, B.S. Cornell University (Plant
Breeding); Glenn E. Pollock, Jr., B.S. Ed., Washington University (Micro-
biology) ; Harry R. Skallerup, B.S. University of Illinois (Genetics). Doctor
of Philosophy—Robert C. Cooper, B.Com., Victoria University College, B.A.,
Auckland University College, New Zealand (Taxonomy) ; Marilyn Amy
Gage, B.S., Pennsylvania College for Women, A.M., Washington University
(Cytogenetics and Plant Breeding); Jorge Leén, M.N., Escuela Normal de
Costa Rica (Taxonomy); Norton H. Nickerson, B.S., University of Massa-
chusetts, M.A., University of Texas (Morphology and Genetics) ; Sidney D.
Rodenberg, A.B. and A.M., Washington University (Physiology).

THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

a geet Oo ct (|: a ee ana aMeeeenee ce aees fC).
LB T The Se GP 4 | |: ee eee a eee one SS ceme see oe Vice-President
Fugen Pettus 2a Second Vice-President

Dudley French George T. Moore

Henry Hitchcock A. Wessel Shapleigh

Richard J. Lockwood Ethan A. H. Shepley

Robert Brookings Smith

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS

Atthur Fi Conipren et _Chancellor, Washington University
Feavimond he fd CCK err 2 Mayor of the City of St. Louis
Stratford L. Morton. President, St. Louis Academy of Science
Arthur C. Lichtenberger.___-.___----- __.. Bishop of the Diocese of Missouri
Oscar Ehrhardt... President, Board of Education of St. Louis
cee || 5, ae een nen en i werent eres. fa 3
STAFF
George T. Moore oo eas cabins a deeueterees Auman ER TEONS Lenton
John S. Lehmann... -..- Acting Director
Pdear (Ameri: eos Speer eea nae acre? __. ..... Assistant Director
Leicester B. Faust Sas . __.... Executive Assistant
Carroll W. Dodge_—-..--______-____-___----------_____- een tars _ Mycologist
Robert E. Woodson, Jr. --------------- nnn Curator of Herbarium
Henry N. Andrews.....-------------------------2---e ee Paleobotanist
eed Wa a sp, 2 ee ne nore Assistant Curator of Herbarium
Much, Cutler..<... - Curator Museum of Economic Plants
George B. Van Schaack.....-----.--....-------- Honorary Curator of Grasses
Julian A. Steyermark__.----.-.-------- errant Honorary Research Associate
Biel €) Hornet 2c... tae oe ee _Librarian and Editor
Gerald Ulrici________ Sead adele iaagiiienspuesc cb aera Business Manager
George H. Pring ——---------------——------------—-- == Superintendent
Paul Ay Ron... seal cel cpa se sR Le ees eda pi Floriculturist
Padisas Cutakyees os __... Horticulturist in charge of Conservatories
Remdericle Ge. MGV Clan ieee ere ow -. Dendrologist
J aT), Pr 1 | 5 : cna nn RTE reste Engineer
August P. Beilmann___--------- Manager of the Arboretum, Gray Summit
|e FE i © i Sete) (| een ee ee Nee Assistant Manager of the Arboretum

a LOWE sn avssesvaelericcecsaeacsiy Sag In charge of Orchids

SOME FACTS ABOUT THE GARDEN

The Missouri Botanical Garden was opened to the public by Mr.
Henry Shaw about 1860. From that date until his death in 1889 it
was maintained under his personal direction. Although popularly
known as “Shaw’s Garden” the name Missouri Botanical Garden
was chosen by Mr. Shaw and he definitely indicated that he wished
it called by that mame. The Garden passed at his death into the
hands of a Board of Trustees, designated in Mr. Shaw’s will, and
the Board so constituted, exclusive of certain ex-officio members,
is self-perpetuating. By a further provision of the will the immedi-
ate direction of the Garden is vested in a Director, appointed by
the Board. The Garden receives no support from city or state but
is maintained almost exclusively from the estate left by Henry
Shaw. Since 1939 many Garden Clubs and interested individuals
have contributed to a “Friends of the Garden Fund” which is used
in developing the new Arboretum, located at Gray Summit, Mo.
The Arboretum (1) serves as a source of plants, trees and shrubs
for the city Garden; (2) affords areas for gradually establishing
a pinetum, a wild-flower reservation and various other features
on a scale not possible in the city; (3) provides greenhouses for

some 50,000 orchid plants.

The city Garden comprises 75 acres, where about 12,000 species
of plants are grown, both out of doors and under glass. It is open
every day in the year except New Year’s Day and Christmas; week
days, 8:00 a. m. until 7:00 p. m.; Sundays, 10:00 a. m. until 7:00
p.m. The greenhouses are closed every day at 5:00 p. m.

The main entrance to the Garden is at Tower Grove and Flora
Place, on the Sarah bus line (No. 42). The Southampton buses
(No. 80), direct from downtown, pass within three blocks of the

main entrance.

VISSOURI BOTANICAL
GARDEN BULLETIN

CONTENTS
Intimate Journeys to California Book Reviews:
Gardens: Hume's Hollies
Ganna Walska’s Lotusland Hume’s Azaleas-Camellias
The Huntington Garden Saga of the Meramec
Notes

Volume XLI September, 1953 Number /

Cover: Golden Ball Cactus at Huntington Botanical Garden.

Office of publication: 306 E. Simmons Street, Galesburg, Illinois.

Editorial Office: Missouri Botanical Garden, 2315 Tower Grove Avenue,
St. Louis, 10, Missouri.

Published monthly except July and August by the Board of Trustees of the
Missouri Botanical Garden. Subscription price: $2.50 a year.

Entered as second-class matter January 26, 1942, at the post-office at Gales-
burg, Illinois, under the Act of March 3, 1879.

Please: Do not discard a copy of the Bulletin. If you have no further use for yours
pass it along to a friend or return it to the Garden. Return postage will
be guaranteed.

Missour1 Botanical
Garden Bulletin

Vol. XLI SEPIEMBER, 1253 No. 7

INTIMATE JOURNEYS TO CALIFORNIA GARDENS
LADISLAUS CUTAK
GANNA Watska’s LOTUSLAND

The writer was one of a small group of guests at a buffet luncheon given
by Mme. Ganna Walska at her Montecito estate. Under colorful Tibetan
parasols, borscht and piroshky were served, along with turkey, fish, and other
delicious food, while Madame Walska dashed from one table to another,
seeing that the plates were full and stopping to take part in conversation
which almost always touched on plants. The honored guests, you see, all
had something to do with plants in some form or another. There were Jean
Delacour, director of the Los Angeles County Museum and an old neighbor
of Mme. Walska’s in France; Hugh Evans and his son, who operate one of
the best exotic plant nurseries on the West Coast; Harry Johnson, Sr., cactus
authority and owner of an outstanding cactus nursery, with Mrs. Johnson;
Ralph Stevens, noted landscape architect and designer of Mme. Walska’s
garden, with Mrs. Stevens; E. O. Orpet, famed horticulturist, with Mrs.
Orpet; Charles Redler, gardener in charge of several Beverly Hills estates,
with Mrs. Redler; and at least four other personalities of the garden world.

After the luncheon, the diners walked down to the imposing iron gates
which were opened wide to greet the members of the cactus confraternity
who were holding their biennial convention in Arcadia. And what a treat
awaited the cactus lovers—a fabulous garden, not with a few scattered
specimens in beds, but massed displays extending from the gates to the house,
or roughly about the length of two city blocks!

Mme. Walska calls her estate “Lotusland,” from that sacred lily of the
Orient that grows so abundantly in one of the big lakes on the property.
Lotus (Nelumbiums), with their stately habit and showy flowers, are truly
suitable for large ponds. They are among the few modern flowers which
were known and cultivated by the ancients.

Outside the mighty iron gates the plantings consist of robust Opuntias,
colorful Mesembryanthemums, and hundreds of silver-gray Echeverias, spell-
ing out “Lotusland.” Inside the gates, Agave attenuata borders the curve
of the driveway that leads to the house. This unarmed Century Plant lends

(117)

118 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Mme. Ganna Walska beside some of her most prized cacti.

itself nicely to decorative use, its fleshy and glaucous leaves rising in a large
symmetrical rosette at the apex of a short trunk. The plants in the garden
are not allowed to produce those large foxtail-like flower-stalks, as they would
die after flowering. If the asparagus-like inflorescence begins to emerge
from the crown of leaves it is immediately cut out, and as a result a multiple

crown is formed.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 119

The Walska garden is a veritable botanical treat. The bizarre cacti are
not the only plants on exhibition. There are tree-high Bamboos, huge
Bananas, towering Eucalypti, massive Cycads, Tree Ferns, and hundreds of
other fascinating exotics to drool over. At one end of the spacious lawn
stands a towering Monterrey Cypress whose horizontal branches form a broad,
spreading head. It must be a patriarch of the place, fifty or more feet high
and erect in stature, unlike the gnarled, dwarfed picturesque specimens found
along the California sea-coast.

“Lotusland” is a succession of gardens, each one unique in its own right.
It is a vegetable Grand Canyon, with moods as kaleidoscopic as that of the
Arizona wonderland. Love, laughter and tragedy hover in the hedge-enclosed,
grass-terraced outdoor theater with its elfish statuary; tranquillity reigns in
the blue-and-white garden where every plant from grass to shrub and tree
must be of pallid hue; jungle silence pervades the lush fern dell where only
broken sunlight casts patterns on the lacy fronds of Ferns and Cycads; while
the urge to live is expressed so nobly in the fantastic growths of Cacti under
full sun.

On the way to the tiled swimming pool one passes through a miniature
grove of Pygmy Date Palms, more Tree Ferns, and a bed of various-sized
Dragon-blood Trees. Huge Staghorn Ferns, suspended from branches of
trees, present a sight never to be forgotten. Around the stone wall which
half encircles the pool and shelters the artificial sandy beach are scattered
huge white seashells planted with the whitest Cotyledons and Kleinias in
existence. These plants also adorn the pockets built into the wall and on
top of it.

Across the road beyond the swimming pool are formal gardens of roses,
dahlias, geraniums, and other old-fashioned favorites. Robust plants of both
the blue and white Agapanthus, better known as “Lily of the Nile,” are
extensively featured in several beds, along with the handsome evergreen
foliage of the Clivias. Agapanthus bloom profusely in the California climate,
particularly during the summer. Clivias are attractive all the year round,
but more so when their handsome umbels of orange-scarlet flowers make
their appearance in spring and early summer. Another African bulbous
plant in great evidence on the Walska grounds is Haemanthus or Blood Lily.
Like most of the Cape bulbs, it blooms in summer, the great ball-like heads
crowning foot-long scapes. It was growing in partial shade under the trees,
in the garden of Madame’s studio where the writer was quartered during his
stay.

Mme. Walska’s house is of early Californian style, with red-tiled roof
and stuccoed walls, against which are planted tall tree-like Cacti and Spurges.
Some of these plants reach the second-story windows and a few extend

120 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Torch Cacti planted against Mme. Walska’s house

beyond the roof. Nocturnal blossoms appear on the spiny branches during
the summer, often remaining fully open until late in the cool mornings. The
house is furnished with many rare and beautiful objects of art. For instance,
in a corner of the drawing room is a Playel harpsichord, and many original
world-famous oil paintings hang on the wall. In the library are displayed her
famed Tibetan collection of tapestries, banners, and gold gods from temples.
In the dining-room, attention is directed to the wall arrangements of rare
Chantilly and Dresden china, especially the Chantilly against the ceiling.

Madame Walska’s mansion is open only on rare occasions, and she lives
in an apartment separated from the mansion by a patio. Here she grows rare
orchids, basket ferns, and other choice exotics. Against the corner of the
house a Bougainvillea was ablaze with orange-pink flowers. A fantastic bird
cage dominates the patio, which, if memory serves right, originally belonged
to an Austrian monarch. Before Mme. Walska acquired it, the cage was
rented for a film in which Bing Crosby starred.

Mme. Walska became interested in Cacti about ten years ago. The Ivy
vine which covered the house then was removed and Cacti and other suc-
culents planted against it. Now, when the sun is right, they cast fantastic
shadows on the pinkish-cream walls. Most of them are South American
Cerei in several varieties, but there are a few African Euphorbias which
greatly resemble them in habit of growth. However, many Mexican Tree

Cacti are also featured, among them a very good specimen of Lemiaireocereus

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 121

marginatus beside the entrance-way. This is a beautiful and fast-growing
plant which sends up branches from the base in organ-pipe fashion and for
that reason it is popularly known as ““Organo.”” Two good specimens of the
thick, many-fluted Pilocereus polylophus from Mexico were loaded with buds
about ready to unfurl their dark red petals. This species is rather striking
because of a thick erect stem of about fifty sharp-angled ribs punctuated by
closely set areoles with yellowish hair-like spines. The most noted recent
acquisition is a very tall Old Man Cactus, Cephalocereus senilis, probably the
tallest “Old Man” in cultivation in the United States. Of this, Madame is
very proud.

Underneath the tall cacti are hundreds of Golden Balls, Echinocactus
Grusonii, in various sizes and shapes. While the majority are single-headed,
a number produce multiple plantlets from the base. All of them possess
spines which glisten like gold when back-lighted. The Golden Ball is native
to Central Mexico and grows in places not easily accessible. It required a
two-day journey on mule-back for the writer to reach the barranca where
these plants grow in abundance, but the sight of the golden “Behemoths”
was well worth the inconvenience. The largest and oldest specimens attain
a height of five feet and a girth nearly as great.

On the other side of the doorway several odd, cabbage-shaped Agaves vie
with the Golden Balls for attention. These do not attain the monstrous
proportions of the pulque-producing Magueys, but are perhaps more decora-
tive and useful because of their small size. Some of the Magueys have thick
heavy leaves up to ten feet long spreading from a central core, in time
producing flower stalks as high as a medium-sized tree.

Across the driveway from the house is a bed of blue Agave that must run
well into several thousand plants. In the same area are thousands of arbo-
rescent Aloes growing under the shade of Palms and other trees. Mme.
Walska is not satisfied with only a few specimens; she demands spectacular
mass displays. This may be a reflection from the years when she was a
celebrated diva and used to lavish settings on the stage.

In one bed near the house are massed at least a hundred of the tall
Kalanchoe beharensis, their trunks marked by the odd broad scars left after
the leaves have fallen. This particular Madagascan succulent assumes tree
size and without a doubt is the tallest member of the Crassulaceae family
which includes the popular Hen-and-Chick plants and the Sedums, well-
known rock-garden favorites. There are two phases of this Kalanchoe; in
one the leaves are of silver-green plush and in the other cocoa-brown.

Another bed contains great numbers of Dracaena Draco, but it is dom-
inated by the largest Dragon-blood Tree the writer has ever seen. This
Canary Island endemic is famous in legend of the Islands. The trunk of one

122 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

tree on Teneriffe was so enormous that a chapel was built within its hollow
body and used by natives as well as Christians. A terrific windstorm destroyed
it about a century ago. The popular name was given because of the blood-
colored resinous substance which at certain times exudes from the cracks in
the trunk.

Just beyond Mme. Walska’s living quarters is a bed containing a number
of interesting grafted crests—fasciated abnormal growths very much prized
by cactus connoisseurs. Ordinarily, this type of growth is hard to keep on
its own root, so it is usually grafted upon a fast-growing stock such as Cereus
and Trichocereus.

Across the road from the bed of crests is an area devoted to Euphorbias
or Spurges. They all possess milky latex which can be very irritating to the
skin. In the African deserts Euphorbias are often mistaken for Cacti. Cacti-
form types are very diverse and fascinating; some species form compact
globose heads or mounds, others bush-like growths, and still others shapely
trees with candelabriform habit. The individual flowers are inconspicuous
but when massed along the ribs present a startling sight. The Medusa-head
Spurge is prominently featured in this part of the garden.

The Saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea), stately sentinel of the Arizona land-
scape, is represented by a number of specimens averaging about ten feet in
height. It is a large columnar cactus of slow growth and the age of the
Walska specimens may be conservatively estimated at about fifty years.
During the writer’s visit they were producing blossoms at the uppermost
areoles. The flowers are broadly funnel-shaped and expand their whitish
petals in a wide-spreading ring from which the abundant short stamens
protrude as well as the thickened style.

It would be impossible to describe all the varieties of Torch Cacti that are
represented in Walska’s garden. A few outstanding examples are those be-
longing to the genera Lemaireocereus, Pachycereus, Escontria, Trichocereus
and Cereus. Lemaireocereus stellatus was producing small narrowly cam-
panulate red blossoms in a circle at the top of the stems. Another rare cactus
was Morawetzia Doelzianus whose equally small rose-red flowers appeared
from a terminal pseudocephalium characterized by definite tufts of white
hair at the stem tips. Several beautiful specimens of the white-spined
Cleistocactus hyalacanthus were seen in one of the beds, together with other
handsome hairy cacti such as Oreocereus and Espostoa. The Mexican Ce phalo-
cereus senilis occupied a bed of their own. Probably the best known of the
white-whiskered cacti, it has been a favorite of all bona fide cactophyles.
Even the tiniest of plants exhibit wisps of white hair.

Perhaps the other succulents are not as bizarre as the true Cacti but they
are equally attractive and often lend color to the small rockery. They belong

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 123

to a diverse group of plant families—the Amaryllidaceae, Aizoaceae, Asclep-
iadaceae, Crassulaceae, Liliaceae, and some fifteen others. Nature has pro-
vided these plants with water-storage organs to tide them over the long dry
seasons of their desert homes. In Ganna Walska’s garden there is a repre-
sentative group of succulents including such genera as Aeonium, Dudleya,
Echeveria, Kalanchoe, Kleinia, Aloe, Gasteria, Mesembryanthemum, and
many others. From their healthy appearance they must be happy in their
surroundings.

The living Telegraph Pole, Idria columnaris, is not really a succulent in
the strict sense of the word, but a xerophyte that fits in nicely with cacti
and succulents. It branches in a peculiar fashion, and individual plants give
the impression of being planted upside down.

One could go on raving about the wealth of plants grown at “Lotus-
land” but there must be an end sometime in order to let the reader in on
other gardens visited on this trip. Mme. Ganna Walska is to be commended
on keeping up such a fine show place which outshines many a botanical
garden. It is our fervent wish that such a magnificent collection will be kept

up for posterity.

HUNTINGTON BoTANICAL GARDEN

Every visitor to California should include the Huntington Botanical
Garden on his must list. This famous institution is part of the San Marino
Ranch which the late Henry E. Huntington purchased in 1903. At that
time the estate included some six hundred acres of rolling land. With the
intention of settling permanently on the ranch he arranged to landscape a
part of the grounds where a residence was to be built. By 1907 he had im-
proved the ranch considerably but there was a section of hillside which needed
attention, so he asked his superintendent, William Hertrich, for suggestions.
Hertrich boldly suggested an outdoor Cactus and Succulent garden and
backed it by stating that since the soil was poor and gravelly it was not good
for anything else. Even though Cacti did not particularly interest Mr.
Huntington, he agreed to give the desert plants a trial on a half-acre site.

At the start only the more common and native varieties of Cacti were
planted but later bizarre ones were added. As the collection thrived, Hunt-
ington began to see real possibilities in a cactus garden, so he induced Mr.
Hertrich to undertake a few field trips for more plants. The first one (1908)
was through the Southwest from where carloads of plants were dug up,
crated, and shipped to San Marino. In 1912, an extended trip into Mexico
netted two additional carloads of cacti. As the collection grew the garden
was enlarged to include five acres. By 1925, ten acres were alloted to the

124 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

“aa
: Se ee

Century Plants, Easter Lily Cactus, and Torch Cactus in the Huntington Botanical
Garden.

desert plants, and little by little the area has been increased until at present
it spreads out over fifteen acres.

Henry Huntington amassed a fortune in real-estate and railroading. Being
interested in horticulture, art objects, rare books, manuscripts and sculpture,
he began acquiring these on a large scale. The paintings and sculpture were
kept in his spacious Georgian house which is now known as the Art Gallery;
the priceless books were stored in a separate building, a French Renaissance
adaptation. The Art Gallery contains an unusually fine collection of 18th-
century English portraits but probably the most famous and popular painting
is Gainsborough’s “The Blue Boy.” The Library contains approximately
200,000 books (a number being 15th to 17th century editions) and manu-
scripts.

The present Huntington estate consists of more than two hundred acres,
only part of it being open to the public. The writer had the opportunity
to go over the whole estate and even visited the circular white marble
mausoleum where Huntington and his wife are buried. There is no admis-
sion fee charged, but admission cards must be secured in advance by written
application. The grounds are beautifully laid out and boast several indi-
vidualistic gardens, the most noted and perhaps the most picturesque being

the Desert Garden which represents nearly fifty years of collecting.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 125

After handing your card to an attendant you ordinarily follow the trail
leading to the Cactus Garden. Along the roadway and on the spacious lawn
are grown many palms ideally adapted to the climate of southern California.
Bordering the curved road one will notice many Crassulaceous plants form-
ing mats on the ground, interspersed with Aizoaceous Ice Plants, Tiger Jaws,
Tongue Plants and shrubby Mesembryanthemums. Euphorbias and Aloes
are in the background. A little farther on, the visitor will receive his first
breath-taking view—a portent of what is to be seen with each succeeding
step. On the right, to the west of the center walk, as far as the eye can
see, mounds of beautiful Pincushion Cacti (Mammillaria) nestle between
rocks and boulders. Some of these clusters are actually three feet across
and consist of more than a hundred heads. Outstanding are many clumps
of Mammillaria compressa, each head with the characteristic crown of white
wool. This species is very abundant in the hills of Central Mexico, especially
in the neighborhood of Ixmiquilpan, where the writer did some collecting
in 1947. Sometimes huge clusters grow out of nearly perpendicular rock
and one wonders how they can find a foothold there. Equally attractive are
Mammillaria geminispina, M. magnimamma and a few white-spined forms
like M. Parkinsonii. The Pincushion Cacti are popular the world over because
there are so many varieties and because individual plants take up so little
room, It is surprising how many potted specimens can fit in the average
window. Mammillarias are globose to short-cylindric plants with either
milky or watery sap. Tubercles or nipples protrude from the plant body in
more or less spiraled rows, each of them surmounted by an areole exhibiting
in many species a diadem of spines. The comparatively small campanulate
blossoms often form a colorful wreath at the crown, these maturing into
scarlet or crimson fruits some looking like tiny radishes, others like chili-
peppers.

Immediately behind the Mammillarias are various groups of Cerei, some
branching from near the base and forming shrubby growths, others con-
tented with simple stems. One member, Trichocereus thelegonus, from
Argentina, has procumbent stems which creep along the ground, the raised
heads somewhat resembling the true Creeping Devil Cactus of Baja California,
In another bed is Cereus xanthocar pus, advertised as the most massive cactus
in the Garden, its approximate weight being five tons. An iron pipe sup-
port has been placed around it to keep the arms intact. The huge base is
wrinkled and looks like the hide of an old elephant. The branches arise from
the base and rebranch above. Since it flowers and fruits heavily each year
there is an abundance of seed which is distributed all over the world to

botanical institutions. The Missouri Botanical Garden has received seed of

126 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

it and already seedlings are becoming established in our collection. The
plant hails from Paraguay.

All the important species of Cereus are represented in the collection, and
during the summer and early fall quantities of large nocturnal flowers are
produced. Cereus Huntingtonianus, named in honor of the founder of the
Garden, is represented by a number of fine specimens. A characteristic of
this plant is that it branches extensively at the base and rebranches very
heavily on the short and chubby limbs. Its general habit is to grow broader
than tall. When in bloom it is unusually colorful because of the crimson
outside petals.

Cereus peruvianus is one of the most widely distributed and greatly ad-
mired members of the Cereus clan. It has also the distinction of being one
of the first Cacti to come to the attention of early Spanish explorers. There
are a number of varieties of it scattered throughout the garden as well as a
few distinct monstrose forms. All these plants were planted in their present
locations about forty years ago. From the specific name one would suppose
it came from Peru, but Uruguay is probably its home, and there is no record
that it has ever been found indigenous to the western slopes of the Andes.
Cereus jamacaru, C. alacriportanus and C. Dayami are other tall Torch Cacti

on exhibition. C. jamacaru produces bluish branches at first, later becoming

Mounds of beautiful Pincushion Cacti nestle between rocks and boulders at the
Huntington Botanical Garden.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN te7

dull green. The other two are quite distinct and inhabit forests in Uruguay,
Paraguay and Argentina.

Since Echinocactus Grusonii grows well in cultivation it is no wonder
that hundreds of beautiful “Golden Balls” are scattered in the beds. Many
of them were raised from seed sown forty-five years ago and have grown
into magnificent specimens. Although they do not sprout regularly from
the base, many individuals will produce innumerable additional heads around
the basal portion just to be different. Ferocacti are similar in appearance
but present a more ferocious aspect as they are well armed with long, thick
and stiff spines, some of them wickedly hooked. The flowers of the different
species vary greatly in color, whereas those of Echinocactus are usually yellow.

Echinopses are South American Cacti of globular, cylindrical to columnar
habit with long-tubed flowers that resemble Easter Lilies and commonly are
dubbed that by cactophyles. Flowers are borne freely on the sides of the
stems and are of exquisite beauty and often delicious fragrance. Many of
the Echinopses were in full bloom, mostly with white flowers, but those of
Echinopsis multiplex were delicate pink.

Astrophytums were also blooming freely. These are dwarfish Mexican
Cacti, always raised from seed as they very seldom produce offsets unless in-
jured. The most popular is the ““Bishop’s Cap,” entirely spineless but densely
dotted with minute white star-like scales or hairs, which give it a stone-like
appearance. Pale yeilow flowers crop up repeatedly throughout the summer
and autumn when days are sunny.

There are vigorous clumps of Euphorbia coerulescens and E. pseudocactus
in the garden. The former is the ‘Blue Spurge,” so called on account of
the peculiar shade of the vigorous branches. It multiplies by means of
rhizomes which spread underground and give rise at intervals to stiffly erect
young plants. The yellowish-green V-shaped bands on its green branches
are characteristic, although some plants are entirely without such markings.

Because the Aloes are of special ornamental value, they are much used in
the Huntington Garden. They range from small, bushy plants to large
branching ones twenty-five to thirty feet high. Around the Torch Cacti
one often sees Aloe vera, whose leaves are used as a remedy for burns, par-
ticularly in X-ray and radium cases. A striking plant is A. plicatilis, with 1ts
many clusters of strap-shaped leaves arranged like open fans. Another
unique species is A. speciosa, whose rosettes of leaves are almost invariably
tilted sideways. One of the handsomest, the best known, and easily grown
is A. Salm-Dyckiana, which probably is of hybrid origin.

Agaves or Century Plants are scattered over the major portion of the
Garden and can be recognized even by the amateur when they produce
flowering shafts up to twenty-five feet high. Similar in habit are the

128 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Furcraeas, which often are even more spectacular. Beschornerias are close
relatives, though generally much smaller and with soft grayish-blue grass-
like leaves.

Conspicuous throughout the beds are Yuccas, denizens of the American
deserts. Yucca australis is easily recognized as it produces a pendent spike
crowded with hundreds of white flowers, whereas most of the other species
have upright spikes. This yucca grows in northeastern Mexico and was
particularly abundant around La Rosa in Coahuila, where the writer once
went in search of the elusive Ariocarpus Kotschoubeyanus, a “Living Rock”
cactus named for a European patron of horticulture who paid a thousand
francs for one ot these plants. Sotol plants (Dasylirions) are also prominent
in the collection as well as Nolinas and Beaucarneas because of their orna-
mental value.

The desert garden at Huntington contains perhaps the best collection of
xerophytic Bromeliads under cultivation. Given plenty of room to develop,
these pineapple relatives often form massive clumps because they multiply
rapidly by means of underground stolons. Most of the varieties bear marginal
prickles on the leaves, and since they are quite pungent one almost has to
wear a suit of armor to work among them. However, the plants adapt
themselves nicely to outdoor conditions in southern California and usually
carry spectacular flower-stalks from two to eight feet tall with hundreds of
flowers in unusual shades of green, blue, yellow and maroon. Plants of
Bromelia Balansae, for instance, are living flames when in bloom, the inner
leaves having turned a brilliant scarlet-red and hence the name “Heart of
Flame.” The Puyas are exciting flowers from the Andes region. Puya
alpestris produces large flowers of a peculiar bluish-green color that is hard
to describe. Some South American Dyckias, strewn all over the ground,
were still in bloom. They are usually smaller plants than the Puyas, with
more slender stalks of yellow or orange flowers. Dyckia sulphurea is one of
the best for pot culture and often is used in dish- gardens.

For anyone interested in Cacti and Succulents the desert collection at
Huntington is a veritable paradise. It is impossible to do the Garden in one
afternoon and many visitors come back again and again. The writer has
visited the Garden on two separate occasions and spent two and one-half
days there but feels that he has not seen everything there is to be seen.

Retracing steps toward the entrance, one may continue to other parts of
the estate. The Rose Garden and the Japanese Garden are beyond the Library
Building and the Art Gallery. The spacious lawn in front of both buildings
contains a trim evergreen hedge, Washingtonia palms, and hosts of interesting
semi-tropical trees. A massive Araucaria Bidwilli demands attention, and
several different kinds of Erythrinas catch the eye especially when the tips of
branches are resplendent with thick coral blossoms.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 129

From the Rose Garden the path leads to the very picturesque Oriental
section, but before entering it pause to admire the pergola erected for the
Wisteria vines. The concrete supports are replicas of tree trunks and
branches upon which the fragrant Chinese Wisteria leans and twines. The
first sight of the red-painted, semi-circular bridge which spans a portion of
the lagoon is breath-taking. Stone pagodas and other Oriental ornaments
are deftly placed to create an authentic atmosphere, and a tea house was
even brought in from Japan and rebuilt on the hillside overlooking the
lagoon. All the shrubs, plants and trees used in the Japanese Garden have
an Oriental flavor. Shade-loving Camellias and Azaleas are planted near by
where handsome native Oaks provide both the necessary shelter and a beautiful
setting. Most of the well-known species, varieties, and hybrids suitable for

outdoor planting are contained in the collection.

Mr. William Hertrich beside a 45-year-old Golden Ball Cactus which he raised

from seed.

Mr. Hertrich, the grand old man who supervised all the developments
on the Huntington estate, still takes an interest in all the projects but most
of the actual administrative work has been turned over to the likeable
Ronald B. Townsend, the present director, who is doing a marvelous job.
The writer’s thanks also go to Mr. Schneider and Mr. Geschwind for their
kind attention during his visit. Yes, the Huntington Botanical Garden is
a “Paradise on Earth,” particularly for the Cactus enthusiast.

(To be Continued )

130 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Book REviIrws:—

Hollies. By H. Harold Hume. 253 pp. The Macmillan Co. New York,
1953. $6.75.

It is the publication of such volumes as this recent one by H. Harold
Hume that indicates we are at last reaching horticultural maturity in this
country. Here is a complete account of garden hollies, the botanical back-
ground, the history of the cultivated sorts, together with directions on
culture, propagation, and even chapters on the holly in folk lore and on the
management of holly orchards for the Christmas trade. There are nine
handsome full-page plates in color, many striking black-and-white photo-
graphs, useful line drawings, and a summary of the hollies which are used
for such caffeine drinks as mate and “black draught.”

The author knows whereof he writes. His interest in hollies is of long-
standing. A few of his statements as to hardiness will have to be taken
cautiously in the St. Louis area, but it is a fascinating and informative and
challenging book for any gardener.—E. A.

Azaleas-Camellias. By H. Harold Hume. 93 pp. Revised edition. The
MacMillan Co. New York, 1953. $2.50.

In the preface the author states that the current edition covers the es-
sentials for the beginner and brings up to date the many changes in the
culture of Azaleas and Camellias which have occurred since the first edition
was published in 1931. Professor Hume ably conserves space by combining
information whenever it applies to both Azaleas and Camellias, as in the
chapter on Propagation and again in discussing their location requirements
and the usefulness of the two groups in gardens. He carefully segregates
the information on noteworthy varieties of Azaleas and Camellias into sep-
arate chapters. Planting, cultivation and care, feeding, as well as pests and
troubles, are excellently presented because the information is concise and
definitely states When, What and How to Do. Prof. Hume also tells in a
few words why it is desirable to water the plants during periods of drought.
We all know that, but he also packs into a short sentence why it is desirable
to water the plants after a period of severe cold weather. The tone and atti-
tude developed through many years of outstanding learning and love of
these plants are shown, not by emotional phrases, but by definite factual
information and by specific instruction for the grower. This book is recom-
mended reading. It is an excellent base for amateur gardeners who desire to
learn how to grow these plants which attract favorable attention by their
foliage and stop conversation by their brilliant and generous display when
in bloom.—C. Barbre.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 131

NOTES

The “Saga of the Meramec.”—On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Sep-
tember 18-20, the Arboretum will become a demonstration and _ testing
ground of land use and the scene of a play “The Spigot on the Hill.” In
the afternoons all sorts of machinery and equipment which have a use in
modern farming or which are especially designed for conservation work will
be shown in action. Many of these machines are new; some are only pilot
models but they give a clue and indication of what lies ahead in land use.
A wide variety of educational exhibits consisting of soil testing, forestry,
game management, and hydrographic studies will be presented. As an
illustration of the elaborate planning involved, it might be pointed out that
a Diesel generator unit of 100 H.P will be required to furnish lights for the
performance of the play.

The play to be given each evening at 7 o’clock was written by Mrs. Pat-
terson Gephart and will be produced by the Community Playhouse. It tells
the story of a pioneering man and his wife in search of ‘‘new” land; how
they settled on the Meramec River; the decline of the land under hard usage;
and the final rejuvenation of the soil.

The entire program is under the sponsorship of the Friends of the Land
and the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and marks a departure from the traditional
custom of the Arboretum in that an effort will be made to attract many
thousands of visitors. A charge of $1.00 will be made for seats for the
performance of the play, tickets for which can be obtained from the mem-
bers of all Garden Clubs.

Dr. Norton H. Nickerson, who received his doctor’s degree from the
Shaw School of Botany of Washington University in June, was appointed to
the botany staff of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

A course in Elements of Horticulture will be given by Mr. Robert J.
Gillespie at Washington University on Thursday evenings during the fall
semester. It will consist of a weekly lecture and laboratory period on such
topics as plant propagation, soil structure, fertilization, care of lawns and
gardens, plant breeding, etc. The second half of the course will be given in
the spring.

A clipping from a London newspaper recently sent to Mr. G. H. Pring
stated that the steel arches that decorated The Mall for the Coronation are
going to Kew Gardens to be used in the reconstruction of the Palm House.
Sir David Eccles, Minister of Works, at a dinner of the Parliamentary Press
Gallery at the House of Commons, announced that “a splendid architect” had

132 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

produced a most exquisite sketch showing the arches in their new role. The
treasury is prepared to spend £250,000 (over $700,000) on the re-erection.

Visitors to the Garden library and herbarium during the summer months
include the following: Mr. J. G. Bacher, Horticulturist, of Portland, Oregon;
Dr. William L. Brown, of Pioneer Hi-Bred Corn Co., Johnston, Iowa; Dr.
Edward F. Castetter, of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; Mr.
Gordon W. Dillon, Editor, American Orchid Society Bulletin, Cambridge,
Mass.; Dr. Carl C. Epling, of the University of California, Los Angeles;
Dr. Alfred G. Etter, of Malvern B. Clopton Experimental Farm, Clarksville,
Mo.; Dr. David H. Fairburn, Director of McKee Jungle Gardens, Vero Beach,
Fla.; Dr. Charles B. Heiser, Guggenheim Fellow from Indiana University,
Bloomington; Dr. Hugh H. Iltis, of University of Arkansas, Fayetteville;
Miss Margaret K. Lancaster, of the Morris Arboretum, Philadelphia; Dr.
Mildred E. Mathias, of University of California, Los Angeles; Dr. Dwight
M. Moore, of University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; Dr. F. Marion Ownbey,
of Washington State College, Pullman; Mr. John Spoehr, of University of
British Columbia, Vancouver; Mr. Robert A. Vines, Director of the Museum
of Natural History, Houston, Texas; Dr. and Mrs. Richard Walker, of the
University of Washington, Seattle.

Session on Forcing Winter Bulbs.—A lecture and practice session on the
Forcing of Winter Bulbs will be held at 1:30 p. m., on October 28, Novem-
ber 4, and November 11, and at 9 a. m. on October 27 and 29, November 3,
5, 10, and 12, at the Experimental Greenhouse. It will consist of a lecture
and demonstration by the Garden’s Horticulturist, Mr. Robert J. Gillespie,
followed by actual potting of the bulbs by each member of the class. A
registration fee of $5.00 covers not only the lecture and demonstration but
all materials used: flower pots, soil, and one pan each of Paper White Narcissi,
Yellow Daffodils, Double Tulips, Hyacinth, and Yellow Calla Lilly. For
those without facilities for storing the bulb pans, the Garden will provide
space until time to bring them to light.

Participants should specify the day they wish to attend, and second
choice should be given since each session will normally be limited to 20
students. Any garden club or similar organization may reserve one session
exclusively for its members, upon the payment of $50.00, the fee for ten
participants. For more than 10 members, the balance can be paid at the
session reserved for the club, though not more than 25 can be accommodated
on any one day. Registration will be closed October 15—those applying first
will be given preference. Applications should be accompanied by the fee
and addressed to Mr. Robert J. Gillespie, 2315 Tower Grove, St. Louis, Mo.
A card of admission will be sent promptly upon receipt.

THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

s Galt s ese a | he11- 0) Eee i nee Skene eee mee __...... President
VBS Cel dl OR ed (fs ean : _..... Vice-President
Eugene Pettus _ = Second Vice-President

Dudley French George T. Moore

Henry Hitchcock A. Wessel Shapleigh

Richard J. Lockwood Ethan A. H. Shepley

Robert Brookings Smith

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS

Arthur 11; Compton eos Chancellor, Washington University
Raymond R. Tucker--.----.--....-...... Mayor of the City of St. Louis
Stratford L. Morton... President, St. Louis Academy of Science
Arthur C. Lichtenberger..----__-___- Bishop of the Diocese of Missouri
Oscar Ehrhardt President, Board of Education of St. Louis
LETT el fo Hel 5s (at A ane ane ss 7 petite ties hcg tee any
STAFF
George T. Moore ‘aaceies » smiwannaticrianiosiiausiecis dw edsleey eR IMORIEES: LRIEOOTOr
hs cra ees a 0 |; eee ee ee a Acting Director
OE ae ae (2. | he a ae cre ene eee ____..._ Assistant Director
Leicester B. Faust _ svnagh ssdncihinnapat wo uicicalacinene OROCUELER Pessistant
Carroll’ W. Dodge... Mycologist
Ruperek, Woedsn, ties dcvvdisisnnaseeninconn ureter of Herbarium
Henry N. Andrews —.—-____-__--------_---______------—— Paleobotanist
Bila Nee TCV Oia ie Assistant Curator of Herbarium
Hugh C. Cutler = Curator Museum of Economic Plants
Robert J. Gillespie Research Horticulturist
George B. Van Schaack..___.._-___----------------Honorary Curator of Grasses
Julian A. Steyermark....__-_-__________.. Honorary Research Associate
leit. A0tnet cc Gayeeciesee encweaacs Librarian and Editor
Gerald OU rict... seetscadeatt aa atin Business Manager
George H. Pring ——— + Superintendent
Paul A. Kohl... shanties ee ease Floriculturist
Ladislaus Cutak .............. -... Horticulturist in charge of Conservatories
Frederick G. Meyer —~ Picea onder eee eee Dendrologist
Kenneth A. Smith... Soa es git cassia labesas seme Engineer
Aucusr Py Beilmann...............- Manager of the Arboretum, Gray Summit
Louis G. Brenner — Assistant Manager of the Arboretum
G. R. Lowry ; In charge of Orchids

SOME FACTS ABOUT THE GARDEN

The Missouri Botanical Garden carries on the garden estab-
lished by Henry Shaw over a century ago at ‘Tower Grove,” his
country home. It is a private institution with no public support
from city or state. The old stone walls and cast-iron fences, the
Linnean House, the Museum, the Mausoleum and the “Old
Residence” all date from Mr. Shaw’s time. Since his death, as
directed in his will, the Garden has been in the hands of a Board

of Trustees who appoint the Director.

The Garden is open every day in the year (except New
Year’s Day and Christmas) from 9:00 a.m. until 7:00 p. m.,
April to November, and until 6:00 p.m., November to April,
though the greenhouses close at 5:00 p.m. The Garden is nearly
a mile long and has several entrances. The Main Entrance, the
one used by the general public, is at Tower Grove and Flora
Place on the Sarah bus line. The Southampton buses (No. 80),
direct from downtown, pass within three blocks of this entrance
and stop directly across the street from the Administration
Building at 2315 Tower Grove. The latter is the best entrance
for students, visiting scientists, etc. It is open to such vis-
itors after 8:30 a.m, but is closed on Saturdays, Sundays, and
holidays. There is a service entrance on Alfred Avenue, one

block south of Shaw Avenue.

Since Mr. Shaw’s time an Arboretum has been developed at
Gray Summit, Mo., opposite the junction of routes 50 and 66.
It is open every day in the year and has two miles of auto roads
as well as foot trails through the wild-flower reservation. There
is a pinetum and an extensive display of daffodils and other

narcissi from March to early May.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL

GARDEN BULL

4 UN

CONTENTS

The New Queen Visits the Garden Book Reviews

Intimate Journeys to California Algae as Food
Gardens: Los Angeles State and The Horticultural Council
County Arboretum Notes

Volume XLI October, 1953

Number 8

Cover: Orchid Bouquet presented by the Garden to the Queen of the Veiled Prophet.

Office of publication: 306 E. Simmons Street, Galesburg, Illinois.

Editorial Office: Missouri Botanical Garden, 2315 Tower Grove Avenue,
St. Louis, 10, Missouri.

Published monthly except July and August by the Board of Trustees of the
Missouri Botanical Garden. Subscription price: $2.50 a year.

Entered as second-class matter January 26, 1942, at the post-office at Gales-
burg, Illinois, under the Act of March 3, 1879.

Please: Do not discard a copy of the Bulletin. If you have no further use for yours
pass it along to a friend or return it to the Garden. Return postage will
be guaranteed.

Missour1 Botanical
Garden Bulletin

Vol. XLI OCTOBER. 1953 No. 8

THE NEW QUEEN VISITS THE GARDEN

On the Saturday after her coronation the new consort of the Veiled
Prophet of St. Louis visited the Garden with her official Maids and received
the greetings of more than 4,000 school children. The affair was arranged

at the request of the Board of Trustees by a committee under the chairman-

ship of Mrs. Walker Hill. Henry Shaw’s old residence “Tower Grove” was
opened for the event. The Queen and her four special maids occupied a
raised platform set up in the west parlor which had been decorated by the
committee, and the other maids of honor took up informal positions on the
main stairway in the reception hall. A harpist provided appropriate music
throughout the afternoon.

(13:3)

134 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Tx

| Se ‘
oO aA
Mapernengan ne) © 4 4

4 sl
*

Miss Julia Terry, Queen of the Veiled Prophet
j ) I

The white and silver of the Queen’s train and the white and silver gowns
of the special maids provided an effective background for the spectacular
bouquet of orchids held by the Queen. It was as a gesture of thanks for the
gift of these orchids that the Queen made her official visit. The visitors
entered in double-file and for most of the afternoon the line of children and
parents extended down the steps, around the entrance circle and along the
old walk through the mausoleum grounds.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 135

ics

It was quite an afternoon. The weather was perfect; the combination
of orchids, debutantes, and handsome ball-gowns was breath-taking, and
every one rose to the occasion. A group of women from the Federated
Garden Clubs, dressed in the clothes of Mr. Shaw’s day, walked about the
grounds and helped the children to while away the time during their long
wait. Little girls were allowed to take a short stroll carrying the funny,
old-fashioned sun-shades, and little boys were amused by the way hoop-skirts
and bustles bobbed along behind as the ladies walked,

136 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

INTIMATE JOURNEYS TO CALIFORNIA GARDENS
(Continued from September BULLETIN )
LADISLAUS CUTAK
Los ANGELES STATE AND COUNTY ARBORETUM

Readers of this BULLETIN will be particularly interested in the Los
Angeles State and County Arboretum, for it is now under the supervision of
Dr. Russell J. Seibert, a former student at the Garden and graduate of the
Henry Shaw School of Botany. The Arboretum, founded through the efforts
of the Southern California Horticultural Institute, is located in the City of
Arcadia and adjoins the famous Santa Anita Race Track where the richest
purses for horse-racing in this country are offered. Even though the Arbo-
retum is not yet open to the public, inspection of the grounds can be made
by appointment. Plans for the Arboretum were being formulated as early
as 1947, but actual construction was not begun until 1950. It will be
several more years before the entire area will be made ready for the public’s
use.

The most striking feature of the 123-acre tract is the tropic lagoon
fringed by luxuriant verdure. It is so attractive and naturalistic that movie
studios have used the setting for a number of South Seas epics. It has also
been the locale for other jungle films—“Devil’s Island”, “Anna and _ the
King of Siam”, “Saigon Incident”, “Objective Burma”, “The Buccaneers”,
and “Distant Drums.”” Even the popular Tarzan and Jungle Jim movies
are shot here. Adjacent to the lake are several buildings of historical in-
terest, including the Queen Anne Cottage, Coach Barn, and the Hugo Reid
Adobe House, which are now being restored as nearly as possible to their
former condition.

The land upon which the Arboretum is situated originally belonged to
the Indians, but when the Spaniards arrived they took possession in the name
of the King of Spain, who presented it to Mission San Gabriel in 1771. When
Mexico severed its ties from Spain, the land was confiscated by the revo-
lutionary government and rented out. Known as Rancho Santa Anita, it
passed into the hands of Hugo Reid, a Scotchman, who married an Indian
woman. It was Don Hugo who built the adobe house in 1839 on the banks
of the picturesque lake, and this building is next on the list to be restored
by the California Arboretum Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated
to restoration of historical buildings.

Rancho Santa Anita has passed through a series of ownerships since Hugo
Reid acquired it, the most famous being Elias J. Baldwin, better known as
“Lucky” Baldwin, who bought the property in 1875 and lived there until
his death in 1909. The fabulous Baldwin was an Ohioan by birth and a

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 137

Date Palm and Castor Bean along the Lagoon

shrewd businessman. At the age of twenty he operated three boats trans-
porting grain from Chicago to St. Louis, and in 1853 he decided to try his
luck in California. He invested heavily in hotels and livery stables but
found greater success in mining, from which enterprise he acquired his nick-

name, “Lucky.”

138 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

“Lucky” Baldwin, like our own Henry Shaw, loved plants. When he
acquired and subdivided his land he planted many fruit and nut trees, experi-
mented with beverage plants, and maintained a large vineyard. After his
death the estate was neglected. In 1947 the State of California, in conjunc-
tion with the County of Los Angeles, purchased 111 acres of the Baldwin
estate for an Arboretum. The following year the California Arboretum
Foundation was incorporated for the express purpose of raising private funds
for Arboretum maintenance and operation. In 1953 the duties of the organ-
ization were turned over to the County of Los Angeles, which created a
Department of Arboreta and Botanic Gardens for the purpose of operating,
maintaining, and developing the Los Angeles State and County Arboretum.
The Foundation will now operate for the restoration of the historical build-
ings on the grounds and raise funds for horticultural and educational projects
contemplated at the Arboretum. The Foundation has already restored the
Queen Anne Cottage, a quaint wooden structure of gingerbread design built
in 1881, which was once the Baldwin guest house and art gallery.

Inadvertantly, the visitor is drawn to the jungle area around the lake,
for without a doubt it is the most bewitching portion of the grounds. In
the spacious lawn which extends from the road to the Queen Anne Cottage,
one will find many fine old specimens of the Sentinel or Washington Palm.
There are two forms planted, the lofty, slender-trunked type, inappropriately
but correctly known as Washingtonia robusta, and the smaller but heavier
W. filifera. Both tower above the surrounding trees, and their graceful
silhouettes cast reflections on the placid waters of the lagoon. The Wash-
ington Palm is indigenous to the canyons around Palm Springs where the
trees grow plentifully. They are now frequently utilized as street trees in
our Southwestern cities. A distinguishing character of the palm is the
heavy ‘‘skirt” of dead leaves which hug the trunk in adult specimens. — If
left undisturbed the skirt will cover the entire length of the trunk, but in
cultivation it is the practice to trim off the lower leaves. A nice stand of
Washingtonias appears on the opposite shore of the lagoon from the Queen
Anne Cottage. The taller specimens, with their characteristic skirts, and sev-
eral younger individuals stand out sharply against the dense jungle brush.
Date Palms( Phoenix dactylifera) are also included in the collection, producing
long feathery fronds in contrast to the leafy fans of Washingtonias. A very
striking Date Palm grows along the bank just in front of the Adobe House.
Its trunk leans far out over the lagoon and is a natural prop for photog-
raphers who use it as part of the background when portraying alluring
women in bewitching costumes.

Around one end of the lake where the vegetation is exceptionally heavy

a trail has been trod out with deviating by-paths that may lead to the water

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 139

or a small clearing. If you have thrived on jungle movies it wouldn’t be
too hard to visualize naked savages stalking the trail or wild animals moving
like shadows through the dark bush. Here and there a fallen tree lies across
the path and there has been no attempt to remove it. Instead, it is allowed
to remain just as it would have in the real jungle.

When the movie studios come in to shoot scenes their experts place
flamboyant flowers and exotic foliage along the trail; stuffed wild animals
in the underbrush; or perhaps even a mechanical crocodile in the lagoon to
add realism to the scene. A small village may be built at one end of the
lake, and presto! the whole area is transformed into the South Seas, Burma,
or swamp-ridden Brazilian Matto Grosso. When the movie people leave, all
their mechanical equipment is taken away, the place cleaned up, and peace
restored. The writer was simply enthralled by the “jungle area” which is
the best attraction in the Arboretum for the sightseer, the photographer, and
naturalist.

The Arboretum is striving to become a horticultural center for dis-
seminating knowledge concerning the use of the many exotic plants which
can be grown in southern California; to establish a school for training gar-
deners and garden supervisors; to provide a library and a herbarium where
specimens can be readily identified; to become a publication center for
gardening literature; and to establish a bird sanctuary.

The Los Angeles State and County Arboretum is under the able super-
vision of Dr. Russell J. Seibert, who was appointed director in 1950. Born
and raised on a farm in Illinois, he did undergraduate and graduate work at
Washington University, St. Louis, and during the summers of 1935, 1937
and 1938 collected for the Missouri Botanical Garden throughout Panama.
In 1940, when the Japanese cut off the rubber supply in the Far East, the
United States set up the Office of Rubber Investigation to conduct research
work in Latin America in an effort to increase hemispheric production of
natural rubber. Seibert was called in on the work as botanist and did field
work in Panama, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Colombia, Haiti and the Dominican
Republic. In 1943-1946 Seibert and his wife, Isabelle (daughter of the
superintendent of the Missouri Botanical Garden), lived in Peru where he
carried on a program of study, selection, and collection of Hevea rubber trees

in the jungles of Peru and adjoining countries.

Plans are going forward swiftly for opening the Old Residence to visitors
at the earliest possible moment. Two or three different committees are at
work on such different problems as guides, costumes, furniture, and repairs.

The old Museum near by is now open whenever a staff member is on hand.

140 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

THOUGHT FOR FOOD FROM ALGAE
EMANUEL D. RUDOLPH

Most of us are familiar with a few seaweeds or at least with the green
scums that can be found at times in our ponds and lakes. These are plants
that are representatives of a large group of organisms called the Algae. Many
of them cannot be seen without the aid of a microscope, when they are
scooped up from the fresh or salt water in which they live. The tantalizing
notion that some of these microscopic green algae could be cultivated and
used to solve the world’s food problems has been proposed by a number of
people recently, and much information on the subject has been brought
together in a publication of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. '

It has been estimated that about 90 per cent of the organic material
manufactured by plants on the earth from the sun’s energy is accomplished
by microscopic algae. Since all animals are ultimately dependent upon food
produced by plants from carbon dioxide (a gas found in small quantities in
the air) and water, using the energy provided by sunlight, any group of
plants that produces so much potential food should be of interest to us. In
nature, these algae are eaten by small water animals which finally are eaten
by fish; so when we have a fish dinner, we are benefiting from “the grass of
many waters”, the algae. The present idea is to make direct use of the food
provided by these plants instead of waiting for the other “middle men” of the
food chain, the marine animals and fish, to wastefully utilize them. These
algae would make wonderful crop plants since the whole plant could be used
instead of having to leave stalks and the like as we do with our present crop
plants.

There are a few questions which one would like to have answered before
embarking on any project to make use of these hitherto almost untapped
food sources. The first query naturally would be, are these organisms
nutritionally valuable and are they tasty as human and domestic animal
food?; and second, can we economically process the algae into available food?
The recent Carnegie Institution publication and the reports of other scientists
have provided some of the answers to these questions. Let us see what has
been found.

These microscopic green algae, mostly the genus Chlorella, have been
used, grow very rapidly, and contain on the average 50 per cent protein.”
This amount can be varied somewhat by the conditions under which the
organisms are grown. Protein is the very important constituent of food

'Burlew, John S., editor. Algal culture from laboratory to pilot plant. Carnegie Institu-
tion of Washington Publication No. 600. 357 pp. 1953.

*Spoehr, H. A. Chlorella as a source of food. Amer. Philos. Soc. Proc. Vol. 95, pp. 62-67.
1951.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 141

A culture of mixed microscopic algac. They give the water in the glass dish

a dense green turbid appearance.

that is so lacking in the diets of people in many parts of the world. In fact,
these green algae are found to have just about the right kinds of building
blocks in their proteins (the amino acids) for good animal food. According
to Sir Herbert Broadley in a report of the United Nations Scientific Con-
ference on the Conservation and Utilization of Resources (1949), the world
needs an increase in the pre-World War II amounts of meat, the major
protein provider, of 46 per cent by 1960 to keep the world’s people ade-
quately fed. In the U. N. “Food and Agriculture Organization’s State of
Food and Agriculture Review and Outlook” for 1951, we are told that by
1951 there has been only a 6 per cent increase in meat production over the
pre-World War II average. Thus, at the present rate of increase, we are not
meeting the protein needs of the world’s inhabitants. It can be seen, also,
from the Second World Food Survey of the F.O.A. (1952) that the amounts
of proteins eaten by various peoples vary tremendously. For example, in
Indochina in 1949, a person received on the average 36 grams of protein per
day, while in Argentina a 102-gram average prevailed. An Argentinian eats
about three times as much protein as an Indochinese. The United States is
high up on the protein intake list, with an average of 90 grams per day, but
there are many countries down at the other end of the list with Indochina.
An adequate daily protein intake has been said to be about 65 grams. If by
using microscopic green algae we can increase the protein intake of the needy

142 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

people of the world and give them a new lease on life, we would really be
making a vital contribution to a better world. It is therefore not just an
academic question, this growing of algae for food, but one well worth con-
sidering carefully.

Already some experiments have been made using microscopic green algae
as food. In Venezuela, a soup made from mixed algae (plankton) grown in
large open bird-bath-type containers was fed to lepers as a supplement to
their diets for about four years with some success. In the few experiments
using Chlorella dietary supplements for rats and chicks the results were not
too conclusive, but the experiments are so few that we cannot get definite
answers as yet. We need and certainly shall get more information on the
value of these green algae as food items for man and his domestic animals.

One other way of increasing the available protein is by increasing the
amounts of fish eaten. With the fish-pond culture program that the U. N.
is establishing in some countries, for example, Haiti, this may be accomplished.
The addition of greater amounts of algae, provided they do not get out of
hand, to these ponds would increase the fish population. This then is an-
other possible use of microscopic algae in some places for increasing their
available protein supply. Naturally, this is not the most efficient use of the
algal protein but it does not require any machinery.

If there is a demand for algae as food, can it be provided in large quan-
tities? All indications, even though they are preliminary, show that Chlorella
could be grown in bulk. There are several experimental plants in operation
in this country and in Israel and Japan. With larger quantities of dry algae
available, experimentation on its uses as indicated by the Carnegie report
will be forthcoming. The picture painted for us by some of the people en-
gaged in growing these algae is most optimistic, ‘Assuming that one half
the per capita requirement of 65 grams of protein a day was to be obtained
from algae, the total area required for algal culture would be less than a
million acres for the present world population (an area a little bigger than
the state of Rhode Island). A chemist who recently wrote a book en-
titled “The Road to Abundance”! pictures our future diet to consist of
synthetic carbohydrates and fats with the proteins derived mainly from
microscopic algae.

It is easy to see how people could get carried away by the promise that
these microscopic green algae hold out, but we should not overlook the
serious obstacles that still remain. While processed green algae is quite

nutritious, it has negative palatability points; its unpleasant taste (but that
*Burlew, John S$, loc. cit.

‘Rosin, Jacob, and Max Eastman. The Road to Abundance. McGraw. Hill Book Co.
166 pp. New York, 1953.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 143

Chlorella as seen under a microscope. Each cell is smaller than a need!e tp.

may be somewhat overcome by using it in conjunction with other materials
in soups), and its ability to swell greatly when water is added, making it
difficult to eat in large amounts. Then, too, the industrial plants for grow-
ing these algae would have to utilize sunlight, since artificial light would be
too expensive, and it is evident that sunshine cannot be counted on all the
time. It also would seem that an algae-growing and processing plant would
be expensive to build and could certainly not be undertaken by those coun-
tries that need the protein most, without considerable outside aid of money
and technicians. One example of a real problem is keeping the algae cool
when they are grown in the sun, because they grow best at moderate temper-
atures. With further experimentation, many of the technological problems
can be solved, but the edibility and cost problems will remain.

We do not, I think, soon face the probability of finding all of the farm
lands abandoned and Chlorella tanks taking their places as one scientist has
envisioned,” nor of munching on Chlorella steaks rather than sirloin ones.
We can, however, certainly look forward to much greater use being made of
microscopic algae, and perhaps the time will come when we shall cast our

bread upon the waters and see it multiplied many fold.

Meier, R. L. Industrialization of photosynthesis and its social effects. Chem. Eng. News
Vol. 27, pp. 3112-3116. 1949.

On the Sunday immediately following the visit of the Queen and her
maids the Old Residence and the near-by Museum were open to all visitors.
Special invitations were sent out to the Friends of the Garden and a number
of architects and local historians. Both buildings were on display from
cellar to garret, with guides to show visitors around and answer questions.
It made an effective demonstration of the charm of these interesting old
buildings and the kinds of problems that are being met in putting them into

more general usefulness.

144 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

THE HORTICULTURAL COUNCIL
EDGAR ANDERSON

After a long series of preliminary discussions the Horticultural Council
of the Missouri Botanical Garden was formally organized on Monday evening,
September 28. It consists of a board of fifteen members, representing as
widely as possible the amateur and professional horticultural and botanical
interests of the St. Louis area. Included on it are leading members of such
organizations as the Federated Garden Clubs, the Men’s Garden Clubs, the
Garden Club of America, the local Rose, Iris, Dahlia, Herb, and Orchid
societies, as well as representatives from the nurserymen and the landscape
architects. The Director of the Garden and the President of the Board of
Trustees are ex-officio members. It will be a self-perpetuating group, with
approximately a third of the members being changed each year and with no
one other than the cv-officio members serving more than three successive
terms.

The chief purpose of the Council is to integrate the work of the Garden
with horticultural and botanical interests in St. Louis. It should put the
Garden in more direct touch with various horticultural developments and
allow the Garden to use its assets more effectively. The members will also
serve individually as centers of informed understanding about affairs at the
Garden. As of October 1, 1953, the Council is made up of the following
members, with one yet to be chosen: Clarence Barbe, Albert C. Chandler,
E. G, Cherbonnier, Paul Hale, Mrs. Hazel L. Knapp, Emmet Layton, Mrs.
James McClure (Eleanor B.), Clarence McGovern, John E. Nies, W. F.
Scott, Jr., Mrs. J. Garneau Weld, Harold E. Wolfe, John §. Lehmann, Edgar

Anderson.

Book ReEvIEWws:—

Your Guide to a Greener Lawn. By Goeffrey $. Cornish. 63 pages.
Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Boston, Mass. 1952. 75 cents.

This attractive pamphlet, published a year ago by the Massachusetts
Horticultural Society, has already gone into a second printing. While written
from the standpoint of the average home-owner in southern New England,
most of its recommendations will hold good in the St. Louis Area. There
are chapters on building new lawns and establishing old ones, on pests, dis-
eases, and miscellaneous lawn troubles, as well as new grasses and grass
substitutes (though ground covers are mentioned only in the title of one of
the illustrations), and an excellent section on lawn-mowers and lawn-
mowing.

The arrangement of the pamphlet is ingenious. Sub-headings in bold-
face type are used generously and there is a complete and conveniently ar-

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 145

ranged index. By running the eye up and down the index pages it is possible
to locate the desired information in a minute or two. The style is simple
and direct; the author obviously has had first-hand experience with lawn
maintenance. Any one seriously interested in lawn care in the St. Louis

area will want to own and to study this modestly priced pamphlet.—E. A.

Styling Corsages with Garden Flowers. By Mary Hazel Drummond. 259
pp. The MacMillan Co. New York, 1953. $3.50.

Here is the complete low-down. The author (a former Missourian now
living in California) tells you exactly how to proceed in producing corsages
of professional finish from the flowers, leaves, and fruits available to the
average home-owner (or for that matter apartment-dweller, for she includes
house plants among the recommended materials). The style is clear, and
there are numerous diagrams and line-drawings showing precisely how to
carry on such tricky operations as rolling rose petals or wiring heavy
camellias. Nothing is omitted. You are told exactly what size of wires to
use for each kind of flower and given directions as to where you can purchase
them. There is, for instance, a whole chapter on the selection, purchase, and
making-up into bows, of the ribbons which are so frequent a feature in
modern corsages. The author is both a professional decorator and an en-
thusiastic gardener. She has lectured widely before amateur and professional
groups. Her book has been put together with intelligence, taste, and a wide
understanding of plants and of people. It is both detailed and complete, in-
cluding even directions on how to make an Hawaiian /ei and how to harden
off Forsythia branches in using them for decorations at an informal garden
Ey

wedding in the spring.

Flowers of the South, Native and Exotic. By Wilhelmina F. Greene and
Hugo L. Blomquist. 222 pp. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel
Hill, 1953. $5.00.

A well-known botanist and a well-known botanical artist have collab-
orated in producing this beautiful and informative book. Really it is three
books, and an editor with a truly tidy mind would be annoyed that they
are not more completely integrated. The bulk of the book is made up of
Mrs. Greene’s black-and-white drawings, three to a page, lining the outer
margins, with the text fitted in between. These drawings combine artistic
excellence and botanical accuracy in a way which has been frequently at-
tempted but seldom achieved. Mrs. Greene has a way of making the essential
characteristics of a plant stand right up off the page in a crisp sketch smaller
than the palm of your hand. The printed matter has been so nicely balanced
that it is a pleasure just to leaf through the pages. The text gives the com-
mon and scientific names, discusses related plants which are also found in

146 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

the area, gives the range and the season of bloom, and somehow finds space
for an amazing number of observations of general interest.

Inserted throughout the book and only partially integrated with it are
two sets of colored illustrations. One set shows individual flowers at a
slightly larger scale than the black-and-white illustrations. The others,
mostly full page, are of massed bouquets showing all the flowers one might
conceivably find in one area at one season. Opposite these pages are black-
and-white representations of the same groups, with all the flowers numbered
and listed. There are, for instance, the spring wild flowers of the southern
coastal plain, some 74 kinds shown as if tastefully arranged in a large earthen-
ware bowl. There are similar plates of such groupings as “Fall wild flowers
of the Southern Mountains”, and a plate showing five spring-blooming sub-
tropical ornamentals in a green glass pitcher. These large plates will make
the book more attractive to the general reader; they will also prove useful to
the sirnon-pure amateur who really wants to know about the plants he is
finding but has only form and color to guide him. It is too bad that some of
these plates could not have been printed at a slightly larger magnification but
even as they are they will be more useful to the general public than most
well-meant efforts on the part of professional botanists.

Many a botanist will want to have the book for ready reference, partic-
ularly if he has to deal with the inquiring public. There is no modern technical
manual covering this area, no illustrated flora, no popular guide to the wild
flowers, no comprehensive manual dealing with sub-tropical ornamentals. A
fifth of the book is given over to the tropical and sub-tropical ornamentals
most frequently met within the deep south. Here the notes are especially
helpful and include suggestions as to pruning and care. This is the book to
take with you on a trip to the South and because of the section on ornamentals
you will even find it of some help on a tour of the Caribbean.—F. A.

The Reh Method of Greenhouse Culture under Plastic Fiber Glass. By
Frederick O. and Winifred Reh. (Shiloh Road, Belleville, Illinois). 10 pp.
1953. $2.00.

This attractively printed pamphlet brings up to date the story of Mr.
and Mrs. Reh’s experiences with a greenhouse deliberately designed to use
modern materials and modern heating and ventilating appliances. The style
is vigorous and challenging. There are three excellent illustrations showing
the greenhouse from within and without and three close-ups of plants which
have been grown in it. Ina revealing foreword Mr. Reh concludes with the
prediction that ‘“‘the mechanically controlled greenhouse of the future will
bring the atmosphere of the tropics into our way of life.”—E. A.

Plants of Rocky Mountain National Park. By Ruth Ashton Nelson.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 147

Revised edition, 1953. 202 pp. U.S. Government Printing Office, Wash-
ington 25, D. C. $1.00 (paper-bound).

The widow of the late Aven Nelson has re-edited and brought up to date
the popular guide which she first published over twenty years ago. The
names of more than 50 species have been added to those in the previous
edition, so that more than 750 flowering plants, ferns, and conifers are in-
cluded in this attractive booklet. There are 100 clear photographs of the
most interesting species (some of them very striking) and 14 large plates
which are either photographs of vegetational types or line drawings illustrat-
ing technical details. There is a bibliography of papers and books likely to
be of interest to those seeking to know more about the flora of the park, an
index of common and scientific names, a glossary, and a helpful index to
localities.

It is called a popular guide, and so it is, but it is a good deal more. Most
of those who use it will be unconscious of the meticulous scholarship which
has gone into its compilation and editing. It will serve not only the needs
of the general public but of the amateur and the professional scientist. Only
some one who has had long experience with the general public on the one
hand, and the scientific public, on the other, knows what different worlds
these two classes of people live in and what different languages they speak.
Making one publication serve perfectly the needs of both groups is next to
impossible. The general public does not want to be bothered with the finicky
technical details which the scientific public demands as its right. The scien-
tific public feels abused if it has to consult the kind of a booklet which is
perfectly suited to the needs of ordinary people. Most popular guides fall
somewhere between these two stools and fail to please either group. Mrs.
Nelson has come as close to satisfying the needs of everyone as is humanly
possible, and the Department of the Interior is to be congratulated on having
produced such a generally useful booklet at such a reasonable price.—E. A.

NOTES

The Annual Chrysanthemum Show at the Garden will be open to the
public, November 8.

Mr. George H. Pring, Superintendent of the Garden, acted as one of the
judges at the National Capitol Orchid Show, Washington, D. C., October
25-25.

Dr. Edgar Anderson, Assistant Director of the Garden, and Mr. Fred
Meyer, Dendrologist, have been made honorary members of the St. Louis
Nurserymen’s Association.

Dr. Amy Gage (Mrs. Harry Skallerup), who received her doctor’s degree
in the Shaw School of Botany in June 1953, has received an appointment as
technical assistant to Dr. C. R. Burnham, of the University of Minnesota,

Minneapolis.

148 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

The third number of Volume 40 of the ANNALS OF THE Missouri
BOTANICAL GARDEN was recently issued, with the following contents: Some
American Medullosas, Henry N. Andrews and Sergius H. Mamay; The Dis-
tribution of Diospyros virginiana L., Harry R. Skallerup; Wildwood, a Study
in Historical Ecology, Alfred G. Etter.

Recent visitors to the Garden library and herbarium include: Dr. E. L.
Core, of the University of West Virginia, Morgantown; Mr. Kenton L.
Chambers, of Leland Stanford University, California; Mr. Paul Allen, Direc-

tor of the Fairchild Tropical Garden, Coral Gables, Florida.

Two of the herb gardens on display October 9 and 10, during the “Cook’s
Tour” (exhibit of kitchen and herb gardens in the St. Louis area) were at
the Missouri Botanical Garden—that of the St. Louis Unit of the American
Herb Society, just east of the Administration building, and that of Dr. and
Mrs. Anderson, at the Cleveland Avenue gate-house.

Woodcocks now nest every year at the Missouri Botanical Garden Arbo-
retum at Gray Summit, and members of the staff have seen young chicks on
several occasions (see September 1948 BULLETIN). Last spring (May 11 to
be precise) Mr. Louis Brenner with the help of his ‘good Ole Setter”, dis-
covered the nest which is here illustrated. Though the woodcock inhabits
moist woods and stream banks, the nest, as in this example, is more often in
the uplands, and the eggs are laid in a shallow basin of dry leaves and grasses.

ae

THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

JoHN S. LEHMANN, President RicHarp J. Lockwoop
Daniel K. Cat Lin, Vice-President GEORGE T. Moore
EuGENE Pettus, Second Vice-President A. WesseL SHAPLEIGH
DupLEY FRENCH ETHAN A. H. SHEPLEY
Henry Hitcucock — ROBERT BROOKINGS SMITH

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS

ARTHUR H. Compton, ARTHUR C. LICHTENBERGER,
Chancellor of Washington University Bishop of the Diocese of Missouri
RAYMOND R. Tucker, Oscar EHRHARDT,
Mayor of the City of St. Louis ee of the Board of Edueation
of St. Louis
STRATFORD L. Morton, GERALD ULRICI,
President of the Academy of Science Secretary

of St. Louis

THE HORTICULTURAL COUNCIL

Clarence Barbre, A. C. Chandler, E. G. Cherbonnier, Paul Hale, Mrs. Hazel
Knapp, Emmet Layton, Elinor McClure, Clarence McGovern, John Nies,
Chairman, John S. Lehmann, W. F. Scott, Jr., Mrs. J. Garneau Weld, Harold
E. Wolfe, Edgar Anderson.

STAFF
George T. Moore ssotiimaaietatutsy scceeeeeee ie Aenea, Emeritus Director
John S. Lehmann eeeapree Siete eounonss cee Acting Director
dear AnGGtsOn ics ices Assistant Director
Leicester B. Faust a : ee eee Executive Assistant
Carroll W. Dodge. Bees bonne acinar pskonceaaes dt gee og eee Mycologist
| Belo sg ial SARE foc: lo! Cl | kee en ee aoe near Curator of Herbarium
Henry N. Andrews... --2---—----- oe Paleobotanist
Rolla M. Tryon-2 22-22 hes Curator of Herbarium
Hugh C. Cutler ae Cae Museum of Economic Plants
Robert J. Gillespie ee Research Horticulturist
George Be V art Scie a cs seein Honorary Curator of Grasses
UATGe TW. Tv es. 09 10: ean enna teenie renee anaes Honorary Research Associate
rf) (a GAM os 9c, eer lease si _.. Librarian and Editor
Te SE 6): ee ene n nnn aENMOESOGRMmeM (hh Csr hag
Gacece’ He Pride cence een
Paul A. Kohl _-_....--.... sates hee ciiatac Lac ovecalaaiaesaabog ipacaaca meme: Floriculturist
Ladislaus Cutak = Horticulturist in charge of Conservatories
Rcecteric ke (os, NICU EE von cnnideicti ee ee _ Dendrologist
ae RCs 5 ae ena REE Es en Sone sje _Engineer
August P. Beilmann_......----------. Manager of the ‘Aihopserie Gis Summit
Louis G. Brenner---.. a Assistant Manager of the Arboretum

Re LOWEY ks In charge of Orchids

SOME FACTS ABOUT THE GARDEN

The Missouri Botanical Garden carries on the garden estab-
lished by Henry Shaw over a century ago at “Tower Grove,” his
country home. It is a private institution with no public support
from city or state. The old stone walls and cast-iron fences, the
Linnean House, the Museum, the Mausoleum and the ‘Old
Residence” all date from Mr. Shaw’s time. Since his death, as
directed in his will, the Garden has been in the hands of a Board

of Trustees who appoint the Director.

The Garden is open every day in the year (except New
Year’s Day and Christmas) from 9:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m.,
April to November, and until 6:00 p.m., November to April,
though the greenhouses close at 5:00 p.m. The Garden is nearly
a mile long and has several entrances. The Main Entrance, the
one used by the general public, is at Tower Grove and Flora
Place on the Sarah bus line. The Southampton buses (No. 80),
direct from downtown, pass within three blocks of this entrance
and stop directly across the street from the Administration
Building at 2315 Tower Grove. The latter is the best entrance
for students, visiting scientists, etc. It is open to such vis-
itors after 8:30 a.m, but is closed on Saturdays, Sundays, and
holidays. There is a service entrance on Alfred Avenue, one
block south of Shaw Avenue.

Since Mr. Shaw’s time an Arboretum has been developed at
Gray Summit, Mo., opposite the junction of routes 50 and 66.
It is open every day in the year and has two miles of auto roads
as well as foot trails through the wild-flower reservation. There
is a pinetum and an extensive display of daffodils and other

narcissi from March to early May.

VMISSOURI BO"

GARD

YN BU

al,

ANICAL

YIN

CONTENTS

Winter Care of Trees and Shrubs

V olume XLI

Daffodils and Daffodil Breeding

Notes

November, 1953

The Best Narcissi for Naturalizing

Courses for Amateurs

Number 9

Cover: Diagrammatic section of a daffodil, after A. H. Church, “Types of Floral
Mechanisms,” Oxford, 1908. The crown rises in the center of the flower
with four of the perianth segments behind it. The stigma in the center
(flanked by the stamens) leads down to the ovary at the base of the flower.
See page 153 for a note on A. H. Church.

Office of publication: 306 E. Simmons Street, Galesburg, Illinois.

Editorial Office: Missouri Botanical Garden, 2315 Tower Grove Avenue,
St. Louis, 10, Missouri.

Published monthly except July and August by the Board of Trustees of the
Missouri Botanical Garden. Subscription price: $2.50 a year.

Entered as second-class matter January 26, 1942, at the post-office at Gales-
burg, Illinois, under the Act of March 3, 1879.

Please: Do not discard a copy of the Bulletin. If you have no further use for yours
pass it along to a friend or return it to the Garden. Return postage will
be guaranteed.

Missouri Botanical
Garden Bulletin

Vol. XLI NOVEMBER, 1953 No. 9

WINTER CARE OF TREES AND SHRUBS
(ADVICE FOR A DRY AUTUMN)

AUGUST P. BEILMANN

Manager Missouri Botanical Garden Arboretum

The woody plants which survived this past summer are in great need of
care and attention. To restore them, prepare them for the coming year, and
assist them to grow normally it will be necessary to irrigate, mulch, and
feed. That these practices are necessary will be apparent if we realize that
hardly a single species of woody plant, in common use, was developed for
the purpose for which they are used to-day. All of our shrubs, shade trees,
and evergreens developed in an altogether different environment. They are
now used as ornamentals because it has been found that they are quite adapt-
able—but even adaptability has its limitations! Only care and attention will

pull woody plants through such a critical time.

Any woody plant that carried a fair share of foliage into the fall would
benefit from irrigation, mulching, and feeding. Among the shrubs, those
which lost their leaves in late summer will show a considerable amount of
drought injury in the spring. Even those most seriously damaged will prob-
ably recover if given some help at this time. Shrubs grow from a crown at
the ground line, and while most of them may need extensive pruning it is
unlikely that very many of them have been killed. When in doubt, prune
them back to the ground and allow the adventitious buds to replace the lost
shoots. Recovery may take a few years, but it can be hastened through good

care.

(149)

150 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Shade trees present a somewhat different problem, and there are no rapid
and easy solutions if many of the larger branches are dead. Pruning, of
course, can be resorted to if the symmetry has not been destroyed. But
recovery is slower with the massive woody plants, and there is no short-cut
to the replacement of lost scaffold branches. When badly injured by the
“weather” of last summer it will be easier to replant—perhaps use a better
tree!

With evergreens the decision of “what to do” can be arrived at
quickly. The pines, spruces, hemlocks and the other conifers in general use
can be helped very greatly IF THEY SHOW NO DISTRESS. However, if
they begin to lose needles quite rapidly, and perhaps rather spottily, there is
no hope. For all horticultural purposes evergreens that show distress are
past all help since they always appear to be in good condition until they
collapse.

If your trees and shrubs show some life, begin their rehabilitation by irri-
gating. Water them well before the winter; the roots continue to grow and
to absorb water so long as the soil temperature is above 55° F., and lower
temperatures are generally not reached until December. If you irrigate, do
a thorough job. Remember that many of the soils in this area will hold one
inch of water per foot in depth, and the deeper the soil the deeper the root
growth for both shrubs and trees. Therefore, a tree growing on the deep
loessial soils near the Missouri or Mississippi rivers may require fifteen or
more inches of water to satisfy its needs. The same species growing on the
shallower soils in the west and southern portion of St. Louis County may have
an optimum amount of moisture when four or five inches of water are ap-
plied through irrigation. Use a soaker hose or turn down the pressure and
allow the water to run slowly for many hours—it would be well to check
the penetration of the water by exploring with a spading fork or shovel. Be
sure enough is applied to moisten the root zone. These directions apply to
shrubs and evergreens, as well as shade trees.

November is an excellent time to use a mulch since the soil will not
freeze quickly and the roots will remain active for some time. Mulching is
important to plants which might have lost many roots through drying during
the summer. It will also conserve water and therefore becomes just a matter
of “good” gardening which pays dividends during dry seasons. Almost any
organic matter can be applied—from two to five inches of rotted manure,
compost, new leaves (weighted down) or any of the dried and packaged
manures, sawdust and wood chips, or shavings. Commercial fertilizers can
be easily applied along with the mulching material. When used in that way
they speed up the decomposition of the mulching material and seldom cause
burning. The combination can be used effectively about a specimen lawn
tree, in a shrub border, or a group planting of evergreens.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 151

COURSES FOR AMATEURS

Several courses for amateurs will be offered at the Missouri Botanical
Garden during the winter and the spring. Plans for two of these courses
are far enough along for definite announcements to be made.

Orchids for Amateurs.—With a little know-how and the right kind of
plants some orchids can be flowered successfully in a bay-window or sun-
porch. Many of them make excellent subjects for the amateur greenhouse
as was demonstrated in the special BULLETIN prepared last year by the St.
Louis Orchid Society. A demonstration class in potting and caring for
orchids will be held at the orchid greenhouses, Missouri Botanical Garden
Arboretum, Gray Summit, Mo., on Tuesday, March 9, 1954. The class will
convene promptly at 10 A.M., with demonstration period from 10 to 12.
During the noon hour the Garden will provide hot coffee, and class members
are urged to bring their own sandwiches and enjoy a social noon hour to-
gether. The afternoon session will be from 1 to 3, and every member will
be provided with an orchid plant in bud or bloom to take home as practice
material. The orchid greenhouses are just off Highway 66 at its junction
with Highway 50 at the edge of Gray Summit, 35 miles west of St. Louis.

Registration limited to 50. Fee $10.00, which includes all materials. If
the demand is great enough a second orchid day will be arranged on Wednes-
day, March 17th. To register, send $10 in cash, check or money order to:
“Orchids for Amateurs,’ Missouri Botanical Garden, 2315 Tower Grove,
St. Louis 10, Missouri.

New Methods in Plant Propagation—New methods of rooting cuttings
worked out by Mr. Lewis Lipp of the Arnold Arboretum are revolutionizing
the making of cuttings by amateurs and professionals alike. A demonstration
class of these new methods will meet for a two-hour session on the following
days in January:

Tuesday morning, 10-12 A. M., January 12, January 19, January 26.

Wednesday afternoon, 2-4 P.M., January 13, January 20, January 27.

Friday evening, 8-10 P. M., January 15, January 22, January 29.

Each student will be given all materials for constructing a “Lippigator”’,
including a cypress wood base with supporting wire frame and plastic cover-
ing. He will also be instructed in making various kinds of cuttings and how
to fill the Lippigator with them. The cuttings can then be rooted at home
on a sun-porch or in a bay-window. This propagating unit can be used in-
definitely in the home for a continuous supply of rooted plant materials.

Fee $10.00 for the two-hour session, which includes all materials. To
register, send cash, check, or money-order to: “Plant Propagation’, Missouri
Botanical Garden, 2315 Tower Grove, St. Louis 10, Mo., and specify on
which day you wish to come.

152 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

DAFFODILS, DAFFODIL BREEDERS, AND DAFFODIL BREEDING
EDGAR ANDERSON

In western New York, where I was born, the single yellow trumpets were
known (and correctly) as daffodils, while the rather formless old-fashioned
double ones (quite incorrectly) were called jonquils. These two words,
jonquil and daffodil, have had a hard time in America. Over much of the
country the true jonquil does not do well and the average American has
never seen one; but the word itself is common in English speech. It is a
good plain word with pleasant associations, and people insist on using it.
There are parts of Pennsylvania where single daffodils are called jonquils,
while here in Missouri single and double alike are jonquils to every florist’s
clerk and the word daffodil is reserved for some mythical golden bloom that
no two people quite agree upon. There is no mistaking the true jonquil when
you have really seen one. It has narrow dark green leaves almost like those
of onions or chives, and nearly circular in cross-section. The flowers are
tiny, scarcely bigger than your thumb-nail, intensely yellow and intensely
sweet, several of them being borne together at the top of the flower stalk.
Down in Mississippi where they do very well and are common in many old
gardens, the country name for them is “honey cups”, or frequently just
plain “honeys.”

Daffodils, jonquils, poet’s narcissi, paper-whites, all of these are narcissi;
all are members in good standing of the genus Narcissus. They all have the
same simple ground plan. Each differs from the other in the proportions of
its various parts. This is one of the fascinating things about Evolution.
Nature somehow hammers out a new plan; somehow in ways that we can
only guess at, she makes a Narcissus. Once made, she sticks to this basic
plan for species after species. The proportions vary from one kind to the
next, the colors, the textures, the season of bloom, but the basic ground-plan
remains. After you have seen a few species of Narcissus there is a fascination
in coming upon still others and learning the myriad ways in which the
changes on this simple formula may be rung.

All of the Narcissi of the world can be described in a few simple sen-
tences. They bloom in the winter or in spring, from an underground bulb;
leaves and flowers coming up at about the same time; the flowers (one or
more as the case may be) on a stout central stalk from a few inches high
to upwards of a foot. The flower has six petal-like segments which are
joined at their bases into a greenish tube leading down in back to a smooth
green bump, the ovary, which swells into the seed-pod when the flower is
fertilized. Projecting forward from the base of the segments is the strange
little crown or cup which is the most distinctive feature of the genus. It
may dominate the whole flower or be scarcely more than a little inconspic-

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 153

The Common Daffodil The Poet’s Narcissus

The two kinds of Narcissi from which many of our garden daffodils are descended. Both
are shown at half natural size, or very near to it, as if cut down through the middle of the
flower.

[ These figures are from one of the most beautiful (and in modern times
surely the strangest) books which has been written about flowers, “Types
of Floral Mechanism,” by A. H. Church (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1908).
In this volume Church’s original plates are reproduced in full color at
almost page size, accompanied by a text which is in part the simplest sort of
Natural History, in part an abstruse discussion of matters not yet fully
understood. A sentence or two from the introduction will suggest the flavor
of this fascinatingly peculiar volume. ‘An attempt has been made to strike
a mean between the prosy abstruseness of the academic systematist on the
one hand, and the imaginative flights of the enthusiastic adaptionist on the
other, and to distinguish carefully what are the facts of observation and
what deductions may have been read into them. The more abstract con-
ceptions and ideas, however suggestive they may be, which are not always
warranted by the facts at one’s disposal, are thus relegated to a special end

section.” ]

154 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

uous eye in the center of the bloom. It may be straight and almost tubular,
or funnel-shaped and flaring. It may be smooth or veined or crimped or
even ruffled. In the Chinese sacred lilies it is a swollen orange collar in the
center of the white flower. In the “Hoop Petticoat’’ narcissi it is an inflated
thin flaring delicate tube which dominates the entire plant, hiding the strap-
shaped segments which are outside and below it. Usually it is the same
yellow or white as the rest of the flower; less frequently it may be yellow
or orange when the outer segments are white or cream-colored. In the poet’s
narcissi, as if to make up for the tininess of the flat and fluted central crown,
it is frequently edged with a narrow band of intense red. One of the most
amazing stories in plant breeding is the way this tiny red band has been
stretched and pulled by the hybridizers to color whole crowns red or orange
and even to help in turning out fairy-like hybrids with crowns of a delicate
muskmelon-pink.

One of the main reasons we can write about the history of garden narcissi
in detail is because so many of those who have known and loved them, who
have collected new kinds in the wild, or bred new hybrids in their gardens,
have been very literate people. It is true, of course, that rose fanciers and
lily fanciers and various other plant enthusiasts are sometimes impelled to
put their knowledge and enthusiasms down in cold print. Yet it does defin-
itely seem as if narcissus fanciers include a higher proportion of able writers
than any other such group. I suspect it has something to do with the plant
itself. There is never anything vulgar about a narcissus. Its refinement of
form, its delicate coloring, its relatively small flowers make it the kind of a
plant most likely to appeal to some one sensitive to the turn of a phrase or
a nice choice of words. Whatever the reason the record of narcissus breeding
is an unusually full one. Many of the chief figures were British gentle-folk.
Engleheart was a Canon of the Church of England; Brodie, a sturdy Scots-
man, the head of his clan, and one of the few aristocrats of our time to live
in a real stone castle—his very name and title fantastic to American ears,
“The Brodie of Brodie’; the Rev. Boscawen, a sturdy gentleman, the Master
of the local hunt, who produced elfin narcissi in his vicarage garden by
crossing garden daffodils with the miniature Narcissus cyclamineus; and Mr.
P. D. Williams of Lanarth, Cornwall, a crotchety genius who produced

“Fortune,” the first hybrid to have a crown as big as that of a daffodil but
bright orange-red throughout. I visited him and the Reverend Boscawen and
many of the other daffodil breeders and daffodil raisers in Cornwall in a
cold, blowy spring, midway between the two world wars.

Cornwall in late winter and early spring is like no other part of the
world I have ever seen or ever heard of. It has two climates, side by side.

There is more sunshine than in most of England but the air is damp and the

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Ai

One of the woodcuts from Parkinson’s “Paradisi in Sole” [a horrible bilingual
pun; “Park in Sun” done in Latin}.
These are all Narcissi but mostly sorts which are seen only in rock gardens or
ys g
special collections. Number 2 is one of the kinds known as ‘Angels’ Tears.”

156 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

wind is chilly. Much of the country is high, rocky moorland; long, gently
sloping sweeps of treeless scrub, beautiful in a wild, moody, romantic way.
The gnarled, thick-set bushes stretch all the way to the horizon with here
and there a bold clump of rocks sticking up out of them and usually off in
the distance somewhere the ancient gray tower of a village church. The raw
wind holds back the spring on the moorlands and well into the daffodil
season these rocky plateaus have an almost sub-arctic aspect. The narrow
little valleys which run back from the coast are out of the wind and in the
sun. They soak up the warmth; they are full of bloom; if it were not for
the bare branches of many of the trees one would call them sub-tropical.
Big, out-of-door hydrangeas are in full bloom and early bulbs make masses
of color in every garden. Motoring through the country at that time of
year gives one a delirious sense of going back and forth from Iceland to the
Riviera. One minute one is up on the cold level stretches of the moor, the
bushes wintry bare or with little dark evergreen leaves. Such plants as are
in flower are hidden in sheltered corners, and the landscape is gray and brown.
Then the road, almost without warning, winds sharply down into one of the
little valleys. You can still hear the wind roar in the bare branches over-
head but down in the valley it is warm and springlike. The whole landscape
has changed in a few hundred feet. Here are little garden plots with grow-
ing vegetables; one is shut in down out of the world. The old houses are set
into the steep hillside and frequently almost tumbled on top of one another.
Dooryards are full of bloom and the grass everywhere is lush and green.

It was in these valleys that the daffodils were grown to sell for cut
flowers and as bulbs, in little fields whose windy upper edges were frequently
tempered with wattle hurdles or straw matting made into temporary fences.
I travelled with a Dutch bulb merchant who was buying some kinds of
narcissi and selling others, so there was much gossip of which of the standard
varieties were selling well and which were being supplanted on the cut-flower
market by something better, much interest, too, in the expensive speculative
new varieties which were beginning to make names for themselves in the
flower shows and might some day be common enough and cheap enough to
sell for cut flowers.

It was a strange cross-section of English society that we visited in that
windy Cornish springtime: a retired manufacturer, growing a few choice sorts
because he loved them; a young farmer with his eye to the future, growing
a few bulbs as a speculation, in a tiny field he had grubbed out in a sheltered
hollow at the edge of the moor; the Honorable Margaret So-and-so, who bab-
bled about “poor dear Nancy and her bad accident” so feelingly at tea time
that only gradually did I realize that Nancy was a mare who had been in-
jured in yesterday’s hunt; experienced flower growers, sturdy yeomen with

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 157

A Daffodil Field in Cornwall in 1930

One of the Rev. Boscawen’s unnamed seedling daffodils.
crossing a hybrid between the tiny Narcissus cyclamineus and
trumpet back to N. cyclaminens.

It was produced by
a big yellow
It is much like that species but a little larger
with a longer stem, and it is much more vigorous. In the United States, where
N. cyclamineus is either difficult or impossible to grow, a variety like this would
be a real addition to the early spring border, and it is to be hoped that some
alert dealer will eventually put it on the market.

158 “ISSOURL BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Narcissus “‘Aerolite’”’

large families most of whom were busy with the flower harvest which was
just under way; a central-European gentleman with a New York accent who
had settled down in a beautiful old house and was raising a few high-priced
bulbs and buying and selling many more (our previous host, who directed
us there had said, ““You’d better watch out for him, he’s a sharp one!”’ and
when we pressed for further details would say nothing but “just watch
out!”). All of these people, as well as the flower-growers whom I had met
the week before out in the Scilly Islands just off Lands End, knew about
Mr. Williams. They all knew about his new variety, “Fortune,” and many
of them knew its reputed price at the moment. It was at that time the
sensation of the upper reaches of the bulb world and as I remember it Mr.
Williams refused my companion’s offer of thirty-five guineas a bulb for the
few he had not sold (‘and he was quite right, too,” said the Dutchman,
“they’re worth more than that”).

This was a strange kind of local respect and national horticultural prom-
inence and money in the bank which had come to a retiring aristocrat
through his love of daffodils. But P. D. Williams was not the only English-
man of his generation, born in a beautiful old manor house, who was able to
live on comfortably in the old house in his declining years because of his
love for flowers. When he came back home from the University he indulged
his love of plants and put his excellent mind to work by assembling a choice
collection of exotic shrubs.

As he grew older, Mr. Williams became increasingly interested in narcissi.
He began his work with them just at the time that daffodil breeders were
beginning to see what might be accomplished by intelligent breeding. It had

gradually been discovered (more or less by accident) that any two species

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 159

Narcissus “‘Firetail”’

of Narcissus could be crossed with one another, and that most of the hybrids
one got in this way were fertile enough to be used as the parents of still
further crosses. Most of the breeding was centered upon the early yellow
daffodil and the ‘‘Poet’s Narcissus,” late-flowering and white. The former
was typically golden yellow throughout, the flower with a cylindrical crown
longer than the petals and smooth in its tubular portion but more or less
ruffled at the edges. The “Poet’s Narcissus” has no trace of yellow. The
perianth is a pure glistening white, the crown so small that for all practical
purposes it is scarcely a crown at all and just looks like a circular spot in
the center of the flower. Examination shows that it is raised above the
petals like the long tubular crown of the daffodil but it flares out side ways
so strongly as to be almost flat on the face of the bloom. It is more or less
greenish or straw-colored, finely crimped or pleated throughout, and fre-
quently bearing at or near its margin an intense narrow line of a dark
reddish orange. If we cross these two narcissi, the hybrid is about what one
might have expected. When the flower opens (later in the season than
would a daffodil, earlier than a “Poet’’) it is a light yellow which fades
from day to day until it is almost white. The crown is medium-sized, shorter
than the petals, conspicuously crimped and somewhat flaring. The orange-
red line is gone but there is a deeper orange tone to the crown than to the
petals, and this orange tendency deepens towards the edge. The hybrids, as
a matter of fact, turn out to be a kind of daffodil which has been known in
gardens (and occasionally found wild-growing) for hundreds of years, the
so-called “Incomparables.”’

When Mr. Williams started in his career it was just beginning to be real-

ized that though the red line disappeared in the immediate hybrid, its poten-

160 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

tialities were still there. Not only could it reappear in the grandchildren of
the original cross but the line itself exhibited that variability which is so
characteristic of every feature of a hybrid. In some seedlings the band
would be narrow, in others it would be broad—sometimes scarcely a band at
all, the color being strictly limited to the fringed edge of the crown. Some-
times the band of color would be sharp, forming an exact circular ribbon
of orange against a lemon-yellow background; in other seedlings it would
shade off gradually, sometimes so gradually suffused as scarcely to seem like
a band at all. The color, too, varied. It could be only a slightly more
orange-yellow than the background or a deep buttery color; sometimes deep
enough that by straining a point you could call it red. This is the hybrid
variability which is the raw material of a plant breeder, and it was with such
seemingly infinite variants of form and color and texture, and substance and
time of blooming that Mr. Williams worked.

Associated with this variability is another phenomenon which is the despair
of most plant breeders. There is great variability but there are powerful
trends in the way certain characters go together: yellow and earliness, for
instance, in these narcissi; they went in together and they stayed together.
In spite of much trying no one has yet produced a late-blooming yellow
daffodil. Whatever the forces that make a species hold to its chief char-
acteristics generation after generation and millenium after millenium, some
of them are so strong that they continue to work even in these variable
hybrid assemblages. The things which went into the original cross together
tend, on the average, to stay together. Bright color went into this particular
cross with small crowns. Pick out the largest crowned daffodils in the
breeding plots today after generations of selective breeding. None of them
have deep orange-red; few have anything more than a suggestion of color.
Pick out from all the crosses of all the breeders the seedlings with the most
intense color in the crown. They will mostly have crowns on the smallish
side, though nearly all will be larger than the crowns of the original Poet’s
Narcissus which brought in the color in the first place. Most significantly,
some of them will be a good deal larger than others, so one is not absolutely
stopped by the tendency of what went in together to stay together; he is
merely hindered. The same holds for color in the crown and yellow in the
perianth. Color and white went in together, and though many of the colored
seedlings have various degrees of yellow a strong clear golden yellow is very
definitely associated with a complete absence of any color in the crown.
Now one of the combinations most gardeners and daffodil fanciers would like
to have would be a bright yellow narcissus which did not fade as it aged,
with a large smooth crown of a deep orange-red. This was one of the goals
which Mr. Williams set himself and one can see that it was doubly difficult.
The red of the Poet’s Narcissus had somehow to be pried away from the

161

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

the

daffodils as illustrated in Parkinson’s “Paradisi in Sole,”

Single and double
first great English monograph on gar

den flowers.

162 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

small fluted crowns and from the brilliant white with which it is naturally
associated and hooked up with the golden-yellow color and the large cylin-
drical crown of a daffodil.

All these things and more are apparent in a collection of modern narcissi
—to one who knows the genus. Daffodils and Poet’s Narcissi are not the
only species which have contributed to the garden daffodil of today. Jon-
quils have been used increasingly, though usually in such small proportions
of the total ancestry that their influence is not very apparent. Cross a
daffodil and a jonquil, and the immediately resulting hybrid is a small-
flowered thing more or less like Campernelle jonquils. Take these hybrids
and cross them back to daffodils and then interbreed these quarter bloods.
Among such secondary and tertiary hybrids it is possible to find flowers large
enough to please a daffodil fancier and with added improvements which have
come in from the jonquil ancestry. These daffodils-with-a-touch-of-jonquil
show the jonquil touch in their brilliant golden color, in the improved sub-
stance of the blooms which keeps them in flower longer, in the trim edges
of the crown, and in their proportionately longer stems. Nearly always, too,
there is an undertone of the heavy sweetness of jonquil perfume mixed in
with the honest forthright odor of the daffodil.

Other species have been used to a lesser degree. ‘‘Angels’ Tears” Narcissi
have been used to produce charming icy-white (or white and citron )
hybrids of delicate form. Narcissus cyclamineus, which flowers in late win-
ter and has a tiny flower like a little doll’s hammer of pure gold, has given
us such early daffodils as “February Gold,” in many ways the most satis-
factory narcissus for the average St. Louis garden. Crosses of Poet’s Narcissi
and ‘‘Paper Whites” have produced a whole new race, the ‘“Poetaz” hybrids,
mostly too tender for St. Louis gardens. From crosses between jonquils and
Poet’s Narcissi came the lovely Narcissus gracilis, a slender long-stalked
narcissus with strawy yellow flowers in an open cluster. It is amazingly
resistant to hot winds and is the last variety to bloom in our collection.

Through the kindness of Mr. Jan De Graaf, the Garden was presented
with several hybrids between the “Hoop Petticoat” narcissi and various
daffodils. They had appeared as rogues in his Oregon bulb fields and were
scorned by daffodil experts because they were big coarse things with little
resemblance to the exhibition type favored in daffodil shows. Grown as
garden flowers, they have a charm of their own and they are in many ways
one of the finest things in our collection. Ultimately, the Garden hopes to
name and introduce the best of them. Even a daffodil expert would like
them if he could forget that they are daffodil hybrids and just think of them
as a new type of spring bulb appropriate for the perennial border. The
flowers are pale yellow when they first open, fading eventually to an off-

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 163

white. The big trumpety flowers are as large as your hand, the trumpet
borne almost upright. They stay in flower for weeks and have hybrid vigor
enough to bring them through sleet storms from the North or hot winds
from the Southwest. A well-established plant with several blooms is a sight
to see. It does not look at all like the dainty “Hoop Petticoat’’ narcissus
which was one of its parents; it scarcely reminds one of a daffodil. In many
ways it seems more like some kind of a hardy, spring-blooming amaryllis, but
it is a splendid plant for Missouri gardens and within a few years we shall
have enough bulbs so it can begin to be grown in St. Louis gardens.

The Hoop Petticoat Daffodil shown to the same scale as the illustrations on page 153.
These tiny flowers, nearly all corona, spring almost directly from the turf, producing a dainty
elfin effect.

THE BEST NARCISSI FOR NATURALIZING
EDGAR ANDERSON

Though daffodils and other narcissi have been used for naturalizing more
frequently than any other bulb there is little exact information about which
varieties are best for the purpose. So far as we can find out, the Garden’s
experiments in its Arboretum at Gray Summit are the only comprehensive
tests which have ever been carried on. After more than fifteen years of ex-
periment, we can now suggest with some confidence that the following
varieties (of those readily obtained from dealers) are the best for natural-
izing in this area. They have been listed in the order of their bloom.

Fesruary Goip.—Bright yellow. Flowers in March. Also best early yellow for
perennial border.

EMPEROR.—Mid-season, soft yellow.

Sir WatTKIN.—Opening yellow, crown fading almost to white. Very tolerant of heavy
soils.

Recurvus.—Still one of the finest of the late-flowering Poet’s Narcissi. Early May. If
possible buy bulbs directly from the raiser so that they will be out of the ground for only
a few days.

Graciis.—Pale yellow, dainty. Hard to get but worth the trouble. Resistant to late
spring heat waves.

SOME FACTS ABOUT THE GARDEN

The Missouri Botanical Garden carries on the garden estab-
lished by Henry Shaw over a century ago at “Tower Grove,” his
country home. It is a private institution with no public support
from city or state. The old stone walls and cast-iron fences, the
Linnean House, the Museum, the Mausoleum and the “Old
Residence” all date from Mr. Shaw’s time. Since his death, as
directed in his will, the Garden has been in the hands of a Board

of Trustees who appoint the Director.

The Garden is open every day in the year (except New
Year’s Day and Christmas) from 9:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m.,
April to November, and until 6:00 p.m., November to April,
though the greenhouses close at 5:00 p.m. The Garden is nearly
a mile long and has several entrances. The Main Entrance, the
one used by the general public, is at Tower Grove and Flora
Place on the Sarah bus line. The Southampton buses (No. 80),
direct from downtown, pass within three blocks of this entrance
and stop directly across the street from the Administration
Building at 2315 Tower Grove. The latter is the best entrance
for students, visiting scientists, etc. It is open to such vis-
itors after 8:30 a.m, but is closed on Saturdays, Sundays, and
holidays. There is a service entrance on Alfred Avenue, one
block south of Shaw Avenue.

Since Mr. Shaw’s time an Arboretum has been developed at
Gray Summit, Mo., opposite the junction of routes 50 and 66.
It is open every day in the year and has two miles of auto roads
as well as foot trails through the wild-flower reservation. There
is a pinetum and an extensive display of daffodils and other

narcissi from March to early May.

MISSOURI BO

GARDEN BU

am

ANICAL

PUN

CONTENTS

Poinsettia, the Favorite Christmas Plant

Christmas Cactus
Mistletoe
Other Common Christmas Plants

December in the Garden

Courses for Amateurs

Notes

General Index to Volume XLI

V olume XLI December, 1953

Number 10

>

Cover: “Showy Poinsettia’,
from Curtis’s Botanical Magazine. London, 1836.

Euphorbia pulcherrima., Reproduction of plate 3493

Office of publication: 306 E. Simmons Street, Galesburg, Illinois.

Editorial Office: Missouri Botanical Garden, 2315 Tower Grove Avenue,
St. Louis, 10, Missouri.

Published monthly except July and August by the Board of Trustees of the
Missouri Botanical Garden. Subscription price: $2.50 a year.

Entered as second-class matter January 26, 1942, at the post-office at Gales-
burg, Illinois, under the Act of March 3, 1879.

Please: Do not discard a copy of the Bulletin. If you have no further use for yours
pass it along to a friend or return it to the Garden. Return postage will
be guaranteed.

Missouri Botanical
Garden Bulletin

Vol. XLI DECEMBER, 1953 No. 10

THE FAVORITE CHRISTMAS PLANT
HUGH C. CUTLER

The poinsettia is the most popular Christmas plant but one of the most
difficult to keep in the house for long. Soon after the plant arrives in the
home the leaves usually grow pale and drop until only a droopy red head is
left to top a bare stem. The florist is then accused of sending a sickly plant,
and the Garden is called for advice on treatment. The florist is not to be
blamed, and by the time the Garden is called there is little than can be done
to save the plant as an ornament for this year.

You can make your poinsettia last longer if you keep it in a sunny
window with a temperature between 65° and 70° F. and shield it from
cool drafts and sudden chills. The plant should be watered whenever the
surface of the soil in the pot is dry (this may be daily at the temperature
the poinsettia prefers) but never allow water to stand in the saucer. Even
with the best of care, in a few days—or, if you are fortunate, a few weeks—
the leaves will yellow and drop and the stem will be almost bare. Because
your plant was so gaudy and cheerful, you may want to have a poinsettia
next year, but don’t try to save your plant just because the price the florist
charges seems high. Unless you have the right kind of a place to keep your
old plant and unless you really enjoy working with plants and seeing them
grow, you will find it more satisfactory to buy a new plant next December.

Of all the instructions for the window gardener’s care of poinsettia, the
most practical I have seen in print were in an article that the Garden Flori-
culturist, Paul A. Kohl, wrote for the December 1938 BuLLETIN: “After
the plants are bare, ... lay them away in a cool part of the basement until
May, and do not water them... . In May cut the bare stems back to six or
eight inches above the rim of the pot. Shake some of the soil from the roots
and re-pot into a six- or seven-inch pot. See that there is some broken
crock over the hole in the bottom of the pot and use good garden soil. After
re-potting the poinsettias, water them, then plunge the pots outdoors in a
sunny position, in cinders or soil about three inches deep. Within a few

(165)

166 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Poinsettia plant cut back and grown a second year.

weeks several shoots will appear, two or three of which should be kept and
the others removed. These branches will grow quite tall in one season and
must be tied to a support, preferably a bamboo cane. It is not absolutely
necessary to start the plants in May. They may be started in June and even
early July. Late planting will prevent the poinsettias from growing too
tall, but weak plants that have been kept dormant too long often fail to
grow. The pots should be lifted occasionally. If this is not done, a large
root may grow through the hole of the pot into the soil beneath, and the
severing of this root will cause all of the leaves to drop when the plant is
lifted in September.

“A better way to grow poinsettias, and one more fascinating because it
requires skill, is to start new plants from cuttings in the early summer; in
fact, that is the way the commercial grower produces poinsettias for Christ-
mas. He would never think of growing old plants a second and third year.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 167

If poinsettias are to be grown from cuttings, the stock plants should be
brought into the light in May or June, the stems cut back to a foot above
the pot, and the plants given a thorough soaking. Syringing the stalks
whenever possible will soften the wood and hasten the development of the
eyes. Cuttings will be available in June and July, which are the two best
months to root them. Those rooted in August will yield small plants with
imperfect bracts. Cuttings are removed from the stock plants when they
are four or five inches long, a stub of at least an inch long being left to
permit secondary sprouts to develop for later cuttings. As soon as the
cuttings are cut from the stock plants they are dropped into a bucket of
cool water to prevent “bleeding.” Poinsettias belong to the family Euphor-

biaceae, and many members of this family contain a heavy milk-white sap

Rooted Poinsettia cuttings

which flows from the plant as soon as it is cut. Later, when the surplus
leaves have been removed and a fresh cut is made beneath a node, the
cuttings are again placed in water. After fifteen or thirty minutes they are
planted in pots or boxes of sand which has been watered and tamped. Make
an opening in the sand with a dibble, about the size of a lead pencil, place
the cutting two inches deep, and pack the sand around it. When all of the
cuttings are in place, water thoroughly to settle the sand and shield them
from the wind with paper or burlap. In the second week a little more air
is admitted to the propagating box, and later it is left uncovered each night.
Cuttings in well-drained boxes should be watered each morning and the
foliage sprayed several times a day during the first two weeks. After three
or four weeks, at which time the cuttings should be rooted, they are potted
into 21-inch pots of light soil composed of garden soil, leaf-mold, and

168 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Euphorbia pulcherrima

Euphorbia puli herrima var. plenissima

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 169

sand. They are again shielded from the sun and wind for a week or more
until root action has taken place. From then on the young plants will grow
rapidly and must be shifted into four- and five-inch pots when numerous
roots reach the sides of the pots.

“Poinsettias grown outdoors must never suffer from cold. A succession
of chilly nights in August and September will cause the plants to shed their
leaves. In the house, grow the plants in a southern window or sunroom and
in a temperature that never registers less than 60° F. If these conditions
cannot be supplied, save your time and effort for the culture of other

worth-while plants that are less exacting in their requirements.”

= | W- ; a

Le a

7

Center of poinsettia: A, stamens; B, pistil; C, nectar glands.

The poinsettia is a native of Mexico and Central America where it js
popularly called the Flor de Noche Buena (Flower of the Holy Night).
When grown outdoors in Mexico and our warmer states or in the greenhouse
the plants often grow to be more than twelve feet tall. Dr. Joel Roberts
Poinsette, first United States ambassador to Mexico, introduced the plant to
Charleston in 1828 where it did so well that other gardeners soon grew it.
Dr. Poinsette sent plants of a red variety to Robert Buist, a Philadelphia
nurseryman, who recognized its similarity to some other spurges and named
the plant Euphorbia poinsettia in honor of the man who brought it from
Mexico. When the plant was grown in Scotland, Professor Graham thought

it so unusual that in 1836 he described it as a member of a new genus, calling

170 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

it Poinsettia pulcherrima. In the same year a colored plate was published in
Curtis’s Botanical Magazine (reproduced on our cover). Today botanists
agree that the scientific name of the poinsettia should be Euphorbia
pulcherrima, and the name of the man who introduced it to American and
European plant lovers is preserved in the widely used common name.

Flowers of the poinsettia are inconspicuous structures borne in small
green cups in a cluster at the tip of the stem. The very conspicuous glisten-
ing drops on the margins of the cups are drops of nectar exuding from the
nectaries. The bright red whorls which most people think are parts of the
flowers are modified leaves, called bracts.

In the variety plenissima, most of the flowers are transformed into red
bracts giving a fuller center. While the plant is certainly unusual, it lacks
the sharp and simple outlines which make the poinsettia so attractive. The
plenissima, or double, variety was discovered in 1872 in a Mexican Indian
village near the state of Guerrero. Not long afterwards a New York florist
paid one thousand dollars for this variety. A white variety discovered in
Mexico about 1835 is occasionally grown today but, like the double variety,

is valued more for its oddity than its beauty.

*

STS

A view in one of the Garden greenhouses showing some of the poinsettias being grown
for the Poinsettia Show.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 171

Seed-pod of Poinsettia

Poinsettias can be grown from seeds. According to Mr. Kohl, ‘“The
seeds are large and there is no difficulty in germinating them. Those sown
in early June will give plants four feet high, and there will be very little
difference between these plants and those grown from cuttings.”

“The line-drawing clearly shows the structure of the central portion of
a poinsettia, and if anyone is inclined to experiment he should take some of
the stamens and rub the pollen onto the pistils. This should be done more
than once in order to insure pollination, and it would be well to transfer the
pollen from one plant to another as the poinsettia is said to be self-sterile.
If the pollination has been carefully done, a large fat seed-pod should form
within a short time. The seed should be ripe in about four months. It is
then stored until June when it may be sown in pots of sandy soil. Plants

started from seed are treated the same as those grown from cuttings.”

New Poinsettia Varieties at the Garden—Thirty years ago the Garden
grew four varieties of poinsettias for the Christmas Show, a red, white, pink,
and a double red. These bore no varietal names but were recognized only
by their color or form. Later, two reds, “Mrs. Paul Ecke”’ and “Oak Leaf,”
were added, both of which are superior to the old red type. This year four
newcomers have been introduced to improve the display and for comparison
with the older varieties. Of these, “Ecke White” has better and larger
bracts than the old white variety. It is hoped that the double ‘Henrietta
Ecke” will retain its center cluster of bracts, the loss of which was a weak-
ness of our old double red. ‘St. Louis’? is being used more for the name
than for any improvement. It propagates easily but its bracts do not have
the heavy texture of “Mrs. Paul Ecke.” The “Improved Albert Ecke,” one
of newer varieties, has very dark foliage-—P.A.K.

172 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

CHRISTMAS CACTUS

LADISLAUS CUTAK

We all know and love the poinsettia because it is symbolic of the Christ-
mas season, especially in our own country. However, there is still another
American flower that reminds us of this festive season, and it is the Christmas
Cactus. To a plant lover, no more fitting gift could be given at this time
of the year than this plant in full bloom.

The flowers of the Christmas Cactus are very beautiful with a shape
unlike that of any other cactus. We might mention, though, that the
blossoms of the Rat-tail Cactus (Aporocactus) superficially resemble it, but
there are several characters to separate them, such as position on the stem,
bristly ovary, etc. The bud of the Christmas Cactus arises from the truncate
tip of a short, flattened joint. The first sign is a little nubbin which points
and elongates until the perianth segments (petals and sepals) unfurl. Each
individual flower measures two to three inches long and usually hangs from
a somewhat pendent stem. The flower has a small, smooth, pear-shaped
ovary topped by a long tube clad with the colorful perianth segments which
have a tendency to spread and bend back against it. The stamens and pistil
are exserted beyond the throat.

The botanical position of the Christmas Cactus seems to be unsettled.
Several specialists have tried to place it without much success. The plant
usually known as the Christmas Cactus possesses fleshy, flattened, leaf-like
joints with rounded crenations and handsome, deep rose, nearly regular
flowers and is distributed by nurserymen under the name Zygocac/us trun-
catus. It generally begins to flower early in December, but may bloom as
early as November and as late as March or April. However, there is another
cactus, with more irregular or zygomorphic flowers, which more nearly
corresponds to the early descriptions of the Zygocactus truncatus. The
margins of its joints have sharp teeth rather than the rounded crenations of
the former and also bear two noticeable claws at the otherwise blunt joint
tips. Because of the prominent claws this cactus is commonly known as
Claw or Crab Cactus, and in the author’s opinion should never be called
Christmas Cactus. The species boasts a number of handsome varieties which
may begin flowering more or less profusely as early as October. The flower
colors range from scarlet to carmine to nearly white. One form displays its
mass bloom around Thanksgiving, and for this reason is known as the
Thanksgiving Cactus.

Plants of the genus Schlumbergera are very similar to those of Zygocactus
but have symmetrical flowers with much narrower petals disposed in star-like
fashion. Cacticians are now aware that the supposedly true Zygocactus

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 173

truncatus is not the Christmas Cactus but at the same time are uncertain
what to call the plant commonly known as Christmas Cactus. Dr. Reid
Moran, the latest authority to delve into the mystery, suggests that Schlum-
bergera Bridgesii is the correct botanical name for the Christmas Cactus.
Whatever the final verdict may be, the Christmas Cactus is sure to bloom
handsomely during the holiday season and make many a plant lover cheerful
during that time.

Growing the Christmas Cactus is not difficult at all. Since it is a jungle
inhabitant it should be treated as such and that means it will require a richer

soil mixture and an ample supply of water in addition to warmth and partial

Flowers of the Christmas Cactus

174 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

shade. A soil mixture composed of light loam, well-rotted leafmold, some
sand, and a generous sprinkling of well-decomposed cow manure will suit
the plant well. It is advisable to place the plant outdoors during the sum-
mer, under a tree or in some other shaded spot, where it will grow sturdier
in the fresh air and will be able to ripen its wood more thoroughly. An
occasional application of liquid manure is beneficial during the growing
season. When liquid manure is not available, any complete plant food should
be applied at three-week intervals.

A rest period is considered a very important factor if abundant bloom
is to be expected. It is this lack of rest that makes the plant a shy bloomer.
A rest may be started about the middle of September and continued for about
two months. Reduce the water supply until only sufficient to keep the soil
from drying out completely. Immature joints, easily recognized by their
smallness and weakness, should now be pinched off. During the rest period
some joints or links will drop off, but this should cause no alarm as this is
a natural condition. A rest period hinders vegetative growth and induces a
strong formation of buds. When the tiny buds begin to show, watering may
be resumed, usually every other day. While the buds are small it is advisable
not to sprinkle overhead, not to move the plant about, and to avoid drafts.
Failure to take these precautions might cause the buds to blast and fall off.
A sudden change in temperature is also injurious. Only when the blossoms
begin to unfold can the plants be moved about or sprayed. A second rest
period should follow the blooming season. Four to six weeks of this should
suffice. During this period the cactus will have a tendency to become weak
and drooping, some of the joints even dropping off, but this need not cause
alarm. Usually two or three waterings will suffice during this resting stage.
After dormancy the shrivelled joints take on a healthier appearance and new
stems develop. When warm weather arrives the Christmas Cactus may be
taken outdoors in a well-lighted location, but not in direct sunlight, to begin
another cycle.

The Christmas Cactus need not be transplanted often. A plant may be
kept in the same container for several years if the drainage is perfect, the
soil light and porous, and plant food given in season. The Christmas Cactus
will flourish and flower on its own roots but since the branches are weak the
flowers have a tendency to hang below the container where they are not
seen to advantage. Grafted specimens, which form umbrella-like heads, are
desirable. Choose a small cutting of the Christmas Cactus for the scion and
a plane of Pereskia or Cereus for stock. Cut stock to desired height and
make an inch-deep slit at top. Then shave epidermis on both sides of the
scion and insert the scion into the slit of the stock. Run a cactus spine

through the united portions and wrap taut with raffia to insure perfect union.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN
MISTLETOE

Superstition has credited mistletoe with all sorts of powers from warding
off lightning and putting out fires to driving away witches and permitting
kissing by those beneath the plant. Today, although wide use is made of
the kissing opportunities mistletoe affords, the other virtues are largely for-
gotten.

Most legends about the parasite come from Europe. The Norse had

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The European Mistletoe growing on the oak tree.

A woodcut from l’Obel’s Kruydtboeck,
1581, a copy of which is in the Garden library.

176 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

elaborate myths about the use of mistletoe as a tool for evil-doing by Loki,
the spirit of evil, and the eventual placing of mistletoe under Freyja’s custody
to prevent any further harm to the gods. Freyja, the Norse counterpart of
Venus, proclaimed the mistletoe a symbol of love and originated the some-
times pleasant custom of allotting a kiss to those who stand under it. Old
rules required that one berry must be plucked from the plant for each kiss
taken, but now that the custom has spread far from the native home of
mistletoe and plants are not free for the taking, this rule is usually ignored.

There are many kinds of mistletoe, all except one of them parasitic on
other plants. The European mistletoe (Viscum album) is a quite distinct
kind from the one which has been accepted as the mistletoe in the United
States (Phoradendron flavescens), but the difference between the two does
not prevent Americans from investing the New World plant with Old
World traditions. Most mistletoe sold in this country is collected here and
only a small amount of the European kind is imported.

The male and female flowers are borne on separate mistletoe plants,
although a single host plant may have both kinds growing on it. When the
flowers open, usually in the winter in our southern states, pollen from a
male plant is carried by the wind to a female plant. The fruit develops
slowly and does not become ripe and translucent white until nearly a year
later.

In Europe the mistletoe berries are occasionally collected and the viscid
pulp used as bird lime, a sticky substance which is spread to entrap the feet
of small birds who step into it. There apparently is no well-known use for
the plant in this country. In many regions it is a serious pest, growing so
large on trees and shrubs that the host leaves are shaded and the host plant
eventually starves.—H.C.C.

The American Mistletoe is native within a short drive of St. Louis. It
grows on large trees in the flood-plains of such rivers as the Mississippi, the
Ohio, and the Wabash. When one motors southeastward this time of the
year the big bunches of the mistletoe begin to get conspicuous after one
passes Cape Girardeau. Seen in the distance they have somewhat the effect
of big green squirrel nests up in the trees. Seldom or never does one find
a plant within easy reach of the ground. I have often wondered whether
this means that it does not grow well there or whether the bunches high up
in the trees are merely those which were too difficult to collect for Christmas

use.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN Lae

OTHER COMMON CHRISTMAS PLANTS

The Jerusalem Cherry (Solanum pseudo-capsicum) grows well in the
house when given proper care but when the room is too hot and dry or if
there is any trace of gas present, the leaves and berries will quickly drop.
The plant should be kept in a cool room, about 50° F. if possible, and watered
well. The soil must be well-drained because the plant does not like to stand
in water. When the leaves and berries fall in the spring, the plant should
be cut back and kept in a cool place, preferably where the temperature is
about 40° and there is a little light. It should be watered about once a
week, although it can be left unwatered as long as three or four weeks if
the basement is cool and moist. In May the pot should be plunged in the
ground in a shady spot, fertilized and watered well throughout the summer,
and in September returned to the house. The small white flowers which
bloom in the summer are inconspicuous but by fall the plant is quite dec-
orative because the leaves are an attractive shade of green. The bright orange-
red cherry-shaped fruits which appear in winter are poisonous, like those of
the nightshade and potato, and unlike the tomato, pepper and eggplant, all
members of the same plant family.

The False Jerusalem Cherry (Solanum capsicastrum) is similar to the
Jerusalem Cherry except that its fruits are pointed. It can be grown easily
by following the methods described for growing the Christmas Pepper.

The Christmas Pepper (Capsicum frutescens) has tiny bright scarlet
peppery fruits which can be used as a spice. The plant will tolerate more
heat than the Jerusalem Cherry and, besides being more hardy, is often con-
sidered a more attractive plant. The Christmas Pepper can be grown by
planting seeds in a pot in April or May, pricking the seedlings off into small
pots, and then shifting to larger pots, up to 5 inches, as the roots crowd the
pots. By mid-June the plants can be plunged in sand, peatmoss or ver-
miculite in a sunny spot in the garden. They should be watered occasionally.
Some gardeners prefer to set the plants out, then in September dig them up
with some earth attached to the roots and pot them, watering well and
keeping the pots in the shade for at least a week. In either case the plants
should be brought into the house before cold weather arrives. While the
plants withstand quite a wide range of conditions and will even live if they
are not watered for several days at a time, they last longer and look better
if they are kept in a cool and sunny spot and watered frequently.—H.C.C,

The odd little seed-balls of the native Sweet Gum make most attractive
Christmas tree ornaments. A beautiful old-fashioned effect can be achieved
by spraying some of them with gold and some silver, and using nothing
else as tree trimming but candles and strings of popcorn and cranberries
strung alternately.

178 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

DECEMBER IN THE GARDEN

After spending November week-ends raking fallen leaves, the home
gardener often forgets that there is much green left for the winter. Here
at the Garden we still have only a few evergreen conifers, all of them young
replacements for trees killed by smoke before the St. Louis smoke laws became
effective. The most conspicuous and useful winter greenery to be seen is
the Garden’s own “MBG Bulgaria” ivy which covers the ground and climbs
the trees in the Mausoleum. This ivy was described and pictured in the
BULLETIN of last June. Friends of the Garden who stop by the office at the
Main Entrance at the end of Flora Boulevard during December and January
can take home three small plants for their own gardens. “MBG Bulgaria”
spreads and roots so rapidly that a few plants will cover a large area by the
second year.

Beside the entrances to the Mausoleum grounds are plants of the ever-
green Lily-of-the-Valley Bush (Pieris japonica), a member of the same
family as the huckleberries and rhododendrons. Its pale green leaves add
variety to the winter scene. To the east of the Mausoleum enclosure is a
deciduous holly (Ilex decidua) with an excellent crop of bright red berries
on its naked branches. The birds are eating these but there are so many
berries on the American hollies (Ilex opaca) that the birds probably won’t
get all of them before January. The American hollies have more berries
this year than almost any other year and visitors are showing interest in the
plants. An excellent book, “Hollies,” by H. Harold Hume, was reviewed
in this year’s September BULLETIN. St. Louis gardeners will find a practical
article by Paul A. Kohl, the Garden Floriculturist, in the November 1947
BULLETIN and those who attend the Garden’s Plant Propagation Sessions will
find that holly responds well to the new methods for rooting cuttings.

Poinsettias, with a few of the late flowering chrysanthemums, like the
white and yellow Garza Supreme varieties, to provide a contrast, will fill the
display house from December 11 to about January 10. In the Linnean
House some camellias are in bloom but most of the plants will not be in
flower until February.—H.C.C.

Osmanthus ilicifolius, another evergreen shrub of southern gardens,
is blooming well this year in the Linnean House. It has dark green leaves
much like those of the holly but smaller. The flowers are tiny, ivory-white,
and delightfully fragrant. Though not as conspicuous as the Camellia it
is a charming shrub and one that seems in keeping with the Linnean House

which every year looks more like an old-fashioned garden.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 179

COURSES FOR AMATEURS

Several courses for amateurs will be offered at the Missouri Botanical
Garden during the winter and the spring.

Orchids for Amateurs.—With a little know-how and the right kind of
plants some orchids can be flowered successfully in a bay-window or sun-
porch. Many of them make excellent subjects for the amateur greenhouse
as was demonstrated in the special BULLETIN prepared last year by the St.
Louis Orchid Society. A demonstration class in potting and caring for
orchids will be held at the orchid greenhouses, Missouri Botanical Garden
Arboretum, Gray Summit, Mo., on Tuesday, March 9, 1954. The class will
convene promptly at 10 A.M., with demonstration period from 10 to 12.
During the noon hour the Garden will provide hot coffee, and class members
are urged to bring their own sandwiches and enjoy a social noon hour to-
gether. The afternoon session will be from 1 to 3, and every member will
be provided with an orchid plant in bud or bloom to take home as practice
material. The orchid greenhouses are just off Highway 66 at its junction
with Highway 50 at the edge of Gray Summit, 35 miles west of St. Louis.

Registration limited to 50. Fee $10.00, which includes all materials. If
the demand is great enough a second orchid day will be arranged on Wednes-
day, March 17th. To register, send $10 in cash, check or money order to:
“Orchids for Amateurs,” Missouri Botanical Garden, 2315 Tower Grove,
St. Louis 10, Missouri.

New Methods in Plant Propagationn—New methods of rooting cuttings
worked out by Mr. Lewis Lipp of the Arnold Arboretum are revolutionizing
the making of cuttings by amateurs and professionals alike. Each demonstra-
tion class of these new methods will meet for a single two-hour session on
the following days in January, at the Garden in St. Louis:

Tuesday morning, 10-12 A.M., January 12, January 19, January 26.

Wednesday afternoon, 2-4 P.M., January 13, January 20, January 27.

Friday evening, 8-10 P. M., January 15, January 22, January 29.

Each student will be given all materials for constructing a “Lippigator”’,
including a cypress wood base with supporting wire frame and plastic cover-
ing. He will also be instructed in making various kinds of cuttings and how
to fill the Lippigator with them. The cuttings can then be rooted at home
on a sun-porch or in a bay-window. This propagating unit can be used in-
definitely in the home for a continuous supply of rooted plant materials.

Fee $10.00 for the two-hour session, which includes all materials. To
register, send cash, check, or money-order to: ‘Plant Propagation”’, Missouri
Botanical Garden, 2315 Tower Grove, St. Louis 10, Mo., and specify on
which day you wish to come.

180 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

NOTES

The dendrology class of the University of Missouri School of Forestry,
Columbia, spent the day of November 12 at the Garden Arboretum studying

coniferous plantings.

Mr. Ladislaus Cutak, Horticulturist in charge of Conservatories, acted as
one of the judges in the ninth International Mississippi Valley Salon of
Photography and Nature Exhibit, at the City Art Museum, October 22-
November 5.

The fourth number of Volume 40 of the ANNALS OF THE Missouri
BOTANICAL GARDEN has recently been issued, containing two papers: “Some
X-Ray Effects in Petunia,” by Henry A. McQuade, and “Some Lichens of
Tropical Africa,” by Carroll W. Dodge.

Mr. August P. Beilmann, Manager of the Arboretum, was the recipient
of the 1953 conservation citation of the St. Louis Audubon Society, through
which the Society honors him as “a naturalist, a horticulturist, an outstand-
ing forester and water management expert, and a leader in conservation
education and action.”

Recent visitors to the Garden library and herbarium include: Mr. Franklin
B. Buser, of the Department of Botany, University of Illinois, Urbana; Mr.
B. O. Bracey, of B. O. Bracey Orchid Company, Santa Ana, Calif.; Dr. J. T.
Baldwin, of William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Va.; Dr. E. R. Spencer,
Soil Expert, of Lebanon, IIl.

Mr. George H. Pring, Superintendent of the Garden, acted as chairman
of judges at the Oklahoma City Orchid Show, November 28-29. On Novem-
ber 27 he was on television (WKY) at Oklahoma City, speaking on
“Orchids” and showing some of the Missouri Botanical Garden specimens.
One of the Garden hybrids displayed at the show, Brassolacliocattleya “Henry
Shaw,” was given an “award of merit” by the American Orchid Society.

For the first time in many years Mr. Shaw’s old country home “Tower
Grove”’ is open regularly to visitors, from one to four every afternoon, in-
cluding Sundays. Under the leadership of Mrs. George H. Pring, the Fed-
erated Women’s Clubs of this area are being hostesses who will act as guides
in the building. It was possible to get off to an early start when members of
the Marguerite Krueger Conservation Club served as hostesses for the entire
month of November on very short notice. Though not completely furnished,
the mirrors and chandeliers give some indication of how the rooms must
have looked in Mr. Shaw’s day. Several old St. Louis families have donated
furniture of the same period as the house, and minor repairs and repainting

will get under way this month.

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

GENERAL INDEX

Figures in ifalics refer to page numbers of illustrations.

A

Accessions during 1952: herbarium, 25;
library, 26

Acrocomia mexicana, 47

Aegilops cylindrica, 114, 115

Agapanthus, 119

Agave, 121, 127; attenuata, 117

Algae, Thought for food from, 140

Aloe plicatilis, 127; Salm Dyckiana, 127:
Speciosa, 127; vera, 127

Aloes, 1, 121, 125, 127

Amateur, Roses from one, to another, 63

Amateurs, courses for: in orchid culture,

141, 179; in new methods of plant propa-
gation, 151, 179; winter session on forcing
bulbs, 132

American Iris Society, 6

American Rose Society, 61

Anderson, Edgar, 18: Balkan Ivy, 101; Best
narcissi for naturalizing, 163; Book re-
views, 41, 97, 98, 99, 130, 144, 145, 146;

Daffodils, daffodil breeders, and daffodil
breeding, 152; ‘Flora Monacensis,” 53;
Horticultural Council, 144; Lamartine

lilacs for St. Louis, 90; Pepper and Salt,
our earliest wild flower, 45; Upland cress
in the house and in the vegetable garden,
40

Andrews, Henry N., 19: Generic Index of
Fossil Plant Names, 19

Annual bequests during 1952, 28

Annual flower sermon, 28, 100

Annual report: sixty-fourth, of the Director,
1; of the Arboretum, 12; of the City Gar-
den, 1; of Herbarium, 25; of Library, 26

Apios tuberosa, 86

Aporocactus, 172

Araucaria Bidwilli, 128

Arboretum, report of, for 1952, 12; chipper
operations, 12; Easter service at, 100; In-
dian Paint Brushes at the, 112, 772; nursery
work, 13; orchid department, 14; “Saga
of the Meramec” at, 131; visitors to, 13;
wildflower trails, 13; Woodcock nests at,
148, 148

Ariocarpus Kotschoubeyanus, 128

Astrophytums, 127

Attendance for 1952, 28

Autumn: Advice for a dry,
during 1952, 6

149: coloration

B

Baker, Virgil G.: Roses grow on you, 69

Baldwin, “Lucky”, 136; and the Los Angeles
Arboretum, 138

Balkan Ivies, 101, 703, TO4; gift of, to
Friends of the Garden, 178; “MBG Bul-

garia”, 101, 702, 104; “MBG
101, 103
Barbre, C.: Review of H.
“Azaleas-Camellias,” 130
Bauhin’s “Prodromos Theatri Botanici”
(1620), illustration of potato from, 87
Beilmann, August P., 14: Hermann von
Schrenk (1873-1953), 50, 51; Shouldn’t
we try hybrid quail along with hybrid
corn?, 34; The watershed district as an
approach to river valley development in
Missouri, 30; Winter care of and
shrubs, 149
Beverage tree, Coyol Palm as a, 47
Bibliographical Notes: Saint-Hilaire’s ‘Flora
Brasilae Meridionalis,” 57
Bies, William H.: The American Rose Society,
61
Birds: water for, 56; wintering at Garden,
33; woodcocks in Garden, 148, nests, 148
Blum, Alma: Creating a rose garden, 82
Boiler house, improvements, during 1952, 11
Boscawen’s narcissi breeding, 154, 157
Breeding: Narcissus, 154; superior quails, 34
Book Reviews:
Lyman Benson’s “Cacti of Arizona”, 98
Geoffrey §. Cornish’s “Your Guide to a
Greener Lawn”, 144
Reg. S. Davis and Mona-Lisa
“Philippine Orchids’, 41
Lee R. Dice’s “Natural Communities’, 98
Mary Hazel Drummond's “Styling Cor-
sages with Garden Flowers”, 145
C. A. Gardner’s ‘Flora of Western Aus-
tralia, Gramineae’, 41
Wilhelmina L. Greene and Hugo L. Blom-
quist’s “Flowers of the South”, 145
C. L. Hitechcock’s ‘Revision of North
American Species of Lathyrus’, 99
H. H. Hume’s ‘“Azaleas-Camellias’, 130
H. H. Humes “Hollies’’, 130
Ruth Ashton Nelson’s “Plants of Rocky
Mountain National Park”, 146
Donald C. Peattie’s “A Natural History
of Western Trees’, 97
Frederick O. and Winifred Reh’s ‘The
Reh Method of Greenhouse Culture’,
146
Books: on roses, 65; Mrs. Edward Walsh’s,
presented to Garden, 164; Saint-Hilaire’s
“Flora Brasiliae Meridionalis”, 57; von
Schrank’s “Flora Monacensis”, 53
Boxwood, 8
Brassolacliocattleya “Henry Shaw,” 180
Brenner, Louis G.: Of Indian Paint-brushes
at the Arboretum, 112, 772; Woodcocks
at the ‘Arboretum, 148, 748

Rumania”,

Harold Hume's

trees

Steiner’s

MISSOURI BOTANICAL

Brock, Wiitiam §.: Roses—from one amateur
to another, 63

Brodie’s narcissi breeding, 154

Bromelia Balansaec, 128

Bromeliads at Huntington Botanic Garden,
128

Brown, D. S., bronze name plate in honor
of, 14

Bulbs, session at Garden on forcing, 132

Bulgaria: ivy imported from, 1Ui, 102, 104;
view from the Rila Monastery, snowing
region where ivy collected, 100

Buxus microphylla var. Roreana, 8; semper-
virens, &

Cc

Cacti and succulents: at Huntington Botan-
ical Garden, 123, 724; at Mme. Gunna
Walska’s, 117, 178, 120

Cactus: Bishop’s Cap, 127; Christmas, 172,
173; Claw or Crab, 172; Creeping Devil,
125; Easter Lily, 724; Golden Ball, 121,
Sept. cover, 127, 129; Living Rock, 128;
Mexican Tree, 120; Old Man, 121; Pin-
cushion, 125, 726; Rat-Tail, 172; Sequoia,
122; Thanksgiving, 172; Tiger Jaws, 125;
Torch, 120, 122, 124

Cactus House during 1952, 2

California gardens, Intimate journeys to:
Gonna Walska’s Lotusland, 117; Hunting-
ton Botanical Garden, 123; Los Angeles
State and County Arboretum, 136

Camellias in Linnean House, 178

Capsicum frutescens, 177

Carnegiea gigantea, 122

Caterpillars, fungus inhabiting, 93

Cattleya Bowringiana, 37; “D. S. Brown,”
14; labiata, 37; Lueddemanniana, 37;
Mossiae, 37; Schroederae, 3; Trianae, 37

Cattleyas make excellent house plants, 36

Century Plant, 117, 724, 127

Cephalocereus senilis, 121, 122

Cereus, Night-blooming, 2

Cereus alacriportanus, 126; Dayami, 126;
Huntingtonianus, 126; jamacarnu, 126;
peruvianus, 126; xanthocarpus, 125

Ceropegia caffrorum, 1

Cherry, Jerusalem, 177

Chionanthus virginica, 113

Chlorella as food, 140

Christmas plants: Christmas Cactus, 172,
173; Christmas Pepper, 177; Jerusalem
Cherry, 177; Mistletoe, 175, 775; Poin-

settia, the favorite of, 165, 1066, 167, 108,
1690

Christmas tree ornaments from seed-balls of
Sweet Gum, 177

Chrysanthemum Show, 6

Chrysanthemums, Garza Supreme, 178

Church’s “Types of Floral Mechanism,” 153;
illustrations from, Nov. cover, 153, 163

Cinnamon roses, 62

GARDEN BULLETIN 183

Cissus sicyoides var. Jacquini, 3

City Garden in 1952: buildings, 10; floral
displays, 6; inventory of plants, 7; label-
ling, 7; main conservatories and exotic
ranges, 1, 9, 11; outside gardens, 4; plant
introductions, 8

Cleistocactus hyalacanthus, 122

Clivias, 119

Collecting plants in Missouri during 1952, 15

Conservation in Missouri, 30

Cooper, Robert, 20: Ponga ware, 29

Cordyceps Robertsii, 93, 95

Corn, hybrid, Shouldn’t we try hybrid quail
along with?, 34

Cornwall, England, 156; daffodil field in,
157

Coronation steel arches used at Kew Gar-
dens, 131

Courses in gardening for amateurs, 132, 179,
251

Coyol Palm as a beverage tree, 47, 47; before
being uprooted, March cover

Crassulaceous plants, 121, 125

Cress, Upland, in the house and in the vege-
table garden, 40

Crests, grafted, in Mme. Walska’s garden, 122

Cutak, Ladislaus, 4: Intimate journeys to
California gardens, 117, 136; Christmas
Cactus, 172, 173

Cutler, Hugh C.: Christmas plants, 177;
December in the Garden, 178; Mistletoe,
175; Poinsettia, the favorite Christmas
plant, 165; Potato, the world’s biggest food
crop, 85

Cuttings: class at Garden, on rooting of, 151,
179; growing holly from, 178; growing
poinsettia from, 167

Cyathea medullaris, 29, Feb. cover; Viellardii,
30

Cypress, 53; Monterrey, 119

D
Daffodil: the common, 153; diagrammatic
section of flower, Nov. cover; field in

Cornwall, 157; Hoop Petticoat, 763; Rev.
Boscawen’s seedling, 157

Daffodils: daffodil breeders and daffodil
breeding, 152; single and double, 767

Dams, building, in Missouri, 30

Date Palms, 119, 737

December in the Garden, 178

Degrees conferred in Shaw School of Botany:
in June, 1952, 21; in June, 1953, 116

Dendrobium bigibbum, 3

Dendrology report for 1952, 7

Digitalis, 108, 708; used in medicine, 109;
William Withering’s book on, 109

Dillon, Herbert L., bronze name plate in
honor of, 14

Diospyros virginiana, self-pruning of, 39, 30

Dirca palustris, 16

184 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Director, sixty-fourth annual report of, 1

Diseases: of roses, 64, 87; Pin Oak yellows,
46

Dodge, Carroll W., 19; Roberts’ Caterpillar
Club from New Zealand, 93

Dragon-blood Tree, 121

Drought: during 1952, 5, 12; Winter care
of trees and shrubs after a, 149

Dry autumn, Advice for a, 149

Dyckia sulphurea, 128
E

Arboretum, 100

Easter service at

Echinocactus Grusonii, 121, 127, Sept. cover)

Echinopsis, 127; multiplex, 127

Electric power, dams as a source of, 32

Elm, Slippery, used in floral arrangements, 42

Engelmann, George: letter from Texas to,
54; reprints of, for sale, 43

Engleheart’s narcissi breeding, 154

Erigenia bulbosa, 45

Euphorbia abyssinica, 1; coerulescens, 127;
pseudocactus, 127; poinsettia, 169; pul-
cherrima, 108, 169, var. plenissima, 108
170

Euphorbias, 120, 122, 125

Evergreens, winter care of, after a dry spell,
150

Evolution, plan of, in Narcissus, 152

’

F

Feeding woody plants after a dry autumn,
149, 150

Fern: New Zealand Tree, Feb. cover, 29:
Royal, 109; Staghorn, 119; Tree, 119

Fertilizing woody plants after a drought, 149

Floods, control of, 33

Flor de Noche Buena, 169

“Flora Monacensis”, von Schrank’s, rebind-
ing as a memorial to Dr. Hermann von
Schrenk, 53

Floral displays during 1952, 6; in December,
1953, 170

Flower sermon in 1952, 6, 28; in 1953, 100

Food: Algae as a source of, 140; Cordyceps
Robertsii as, 96; potato, the world’s biggest
food crop, 85

Forcing winter bulbs, session on, at Garden,
132

Foxglove, 108, 108; medical uses of,
William Withering’s book on, 109

Freytag, George F., 18: The Coyol Palm as a
beverage tree, 47

Friends of the Garden: at opening of Old
Residence and Museum, 143; gift of ivy
plants to, 178

Friends of the Land, “Saga of the Meramec”
sponsored by, 131

Fringe Tree, 113

Fungus from New Zealand, attaching cater-
pillars, 93, 05

Furcraea, 128

109;

G

Garden Club of St. Louis: financial assistance
of, 13; rebinding of books as memorial to
members of, 53, 100

Gardener’s Banquet fund, 28

Gardening courses for amateurs, 132, 151,
179

Gate of Henry Shaw’s City residence, cen-
tral detail from, Jan. cover

Genetics research at Garden during 1952, 18

Gillespie, Robert J., gardening courses con-
ducted by: Elements of Horticulture, 131;
forcing winter bulbs, 132; making cuttings,
151, 179; orchid culture, 151, 179

Goatgrass, Jointed, 114, 175

Golden Ball Cactus, 121, Sept. cover, 127,
129

Gonna Walska’s Lotusland, 117, 778

Goodyera pubescens, 16

Graduate students during 1952, 21

Grafted crests, 122

Grass Herbarium at the Garden, 60

Greater St. Louis Dahlia and Chrysanthemum
Society Show, 6

Greene, George D.: I hunted old roses, 65

Greenhouses, Garden, view in, showing some
of the poinsettias being grown for Poin-
settia Show, 170

Ground covers, see Balkan Ivy

Growing roses, Nothing to, 72

H

Haemanthus, 119

Harbinger-of-Sprine, 45

Hedera Helix “Bulgaria”, 8; see also Ivy

Henry Shaw Cactus Society exhibit, 6

Henry Shaw’s Old Residence, see Old Resi-
dence

Hepatica acutiloba, 16; americana, 16

Herb Garden, new, at Botanical
Garden, 6, 148

Herbarium, annual report of, for 1952, 25;
Grass Herbarium, 60

Herterich, William, 129; beside a ‘Golden-
ball Cactus”, 720

Hobby, Rose growing as a, 84

Hochuli, Doris: Rose growing as a hobby, 84

Holly: American, 178; deciduous, 178

Missouri

Horner, Nell C.: Bibliographical Notes—
Saint-Hilaire’s ‘Flora Brasiliae Meridion-
alis,” 57

Horsechestnuts, uses of, 43

Horticultural Council of the Missouri Botan-
ical Garden, 144

Horticulture courses: in Elements of Horti-
culture, 131; on bulb forcing, 132; on
orchid growing, 151, 166; on plant propa-
gation by cuttings, 151, 166

Host’s “Icones et Descriptiones Graminum
Austriacorum”, 1802, illustration of
Aegilops cylindrica from, 115

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 185

Hou, Ding, 21

House plants: Cattleyas make excellent, 36;
Christmas Cactus, 172; Christmas Pepper,
177; Jerusalem Cherry, 177; Poinsettia,
165

Huggenberger, Mary Lou: The Quest, 79

Huntington Botanical Garden, 123, 1/24;
Golden Ball Cactus at, Sepf. cover, 120;
Pincushion Cacti at, 126

Hybrid quail, Shouldn’t we try, along with
hybrid corn, 34

Ice plants, 125

Idria columnaris, 123

Ilex decidua, 178; opaca, 178

Income of Garden during 1952, 1

Indian Paint-brush at the Arboretum, 112,
II2

Insects attacking roses, 87

Intimate journeys to California Gardens, 117,
136

Introductions of new plants during 1952, 8

Inventory of plant collections, 7

Ipomoea tuberosa, 3

Iris show in 1952, 6

Iron chlorosis, 46

Irrigation of woody plants after a dry sum-
mer, 150

Isotria medeoloides, rediscovery of, in Mis-
souri, 16

Italian Garden during 1952, 5

Ivy, Balkan, 101; ‘MBG Bulgaria’, 101,
102, 104, 100; gift of, to Friends of the
Garden, 178; “MBG Rumania”, 101, 703;
in the Mausoleum Grove, June cover

J

Jerusalem Cherry, 177; False, 177

Jointed Goatgrass, 114, 775

Jonquils, 152; Campernelle, 162

Journeys to California Gardens,
Ll 136

Intimate,

K
Kalanchoe beharensis, 121
Keay’s, Mrs., “Old Roses,” 65
Kew Gardens, new palm house at, 131
Kohl, Paul A., 7: New Poinsettia varieties at
Garden, 171

L

Labeling plants in 1952, 7

Laeliocattleya, new hybrids: “A. A. Hunter,”
14; “C. W. Powell,” 14; “L. Ray Carter,”
14; ‘Se. Louis,” 14; “Tower Grove,” 14

Lamartine Lilacs for St. Louis, 90; Catinat,
Descartes, Lamartine, Mirabeau, Pascal, 90;
planting, 91

Lectures, scientific and popular, by Garden
staff during 1952, 24

Legends about the Mistletoe, 175

Lehmann, John S.: Species and old-fashioned
roses that do well in the St. Louis area, 74

Lemairocereus marginatus, 121; stellatus, 122

Lemoine’s lilacs, 90

Leon, Jorge, 20

Letter from Texas to George Englemann, 54

Library, report of, for 1952, 26

Lilacs in 1953, 89; Lamartine, for St. Louis,
90; “Catinat,” June cover

Lily of the Nile, 119

Lily-of-the-Valley Bush, 178

Lily pools at Garden, 4

Lindheimer, Ferdinand: letter from, to George
Engelmann, 54; map of Central Texas by,
55

“Lippigator’’, rooting cuttings in, 151, 179

VObel’s “Krydtboeck”, woodcut of European
mistletoe from, 175

Los Angeles State and County Arboretum,
136

Lotusland, Gonna Walska’s, 117

Lyonia mariana, new state record for, 17

M

McMath, Frank R.: Rose testing, 77

McQuade, Henry, 18

Magnolia parviflora, 8

Main Conservatories during 1952, 9

Maintenance at City Garden during 1952,
ee |

Mamaku, 29

Mammillaria compressa, 125; geminispina,
125; magnimamma, 125; Parkinsonii, 125

Mausoleum Grove, Rumanian Ivy in, June
cover

Medicinal plants, 109; Digitalis, 708, 109

Meet William Withering, 107

Mehlquist, Dr. Gustav A. L., 20

“Meramec, The Saga of the”, 131

Mesembryanthemums, 117, 123, 125

Metasequoia, 8

Meyer, Frederick G., 9:
46

Missouri: plant survey during 1952, 15;
watershed district as an approach to river
valley development in, 30

Mistletoe, 175, 175; legends about, 176

Molina R., Antonio, 20

Morawetzea Doelzianus, 122

Mulching trees and shrubs after a dry sum-
mer, 150

Museum of Economic Plants, 44, 139

Mycology, report of, for 1952, 19

N

Narcissi, the best, for naturalizing, 163

Narcissus, 153, 155; ‘“Aerolite,” 158; Chinese
Sacred Lily, 154; cyclamineus, 157, 162;
February Gold, 162; Firetail, 159; Fortune,
154, 158; Hoop Petticoat, 154, 162, 163;
Paper-white, 152; Poets, 153, 154, 159

“Pin Oak yellows,”

186 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Naturalizing narcissi, 163

Nelumbiums, 117

New Zealand tree fern, Feb. cover, 29

New Zealand, Roberts’ Caterpillar
from, 93, 95

Nies, John E.: Nothing to growing roses, 72

Night-blooming Cereus, 2

Nymphaea, 4: “African Gold,” 4; colorata,
4; “Darwin’s Violets,” 4; gigantea, 4;
Heudelotii, 4; “Midnight,” 4; ‘Missouri,”
4; “Se. Louis,” 4; sulphurea, 4; “Talis-
man,” 4; violacea, 4

Club

O

Oak beer: Orchids like, 91; directions for
making, 92

Oenetus moth, 93

Old Residence, Henry Shaw’s: Bulgarian Ivy
growing on, /02; opening of, to visitors,
133, 133, 134, 135, 139, 180; Veiled
Prophet’s Queen visits, 133, 734

Oncidium sphacelatum, 3

Openawk, 86

Opuntias, 117

Orchid: boquet presented by Garden to Queen
of the Veiled Prophet, Oct. cover; depart-
ment at Arboretum, 14, 15; Pogonia, 16;
show at Garden, 44

Orchids: as house plants, 36, 91; fertilizers
for, 91; for amateurs, 151, 179; like “Oak
beer,” 91; session on growing, for ama-
teurs, 151, 179

Osmunda regalis, 109

Outside gardens, 4

Ozark Witch-hazel, 89

Pp

Painting done at Garden during 1952, 11

Paleobotany research during 1952, 19

Palms: Coyol, 47; Date, 119,
Sentinel or Washington, 138

Palm House: new plants in, 3; new signs in,
3; orchids in, 3

Parkinson’s ‘“Theatrum Botanicum of 1629,”
illustration of Foxglove from, 108; ‘Para-
dise in Sole,”’ illustrations of narcissi from,
155, 101

Pepper, Christmas, 177

Pepper and Salt, our earliest wild flower, 45

Persimmon, 16; Our self-pruning, 39, 39

Phacelia ranunculacea, 16

Phoenix dactylifera, 119, 138

Phoradendron flavescens, 176

Pieris japonica, 178

Pilocereus polylophus, 121

Pin Oak yellows, 46

Pinus nigra, 8

Pogonia Orchid, rediscovery of, 16

137, 138;

Poinsettia, 165; care of, after blooming, 165;
double, 169, 760; grown outdoors, 168;
history of, 165; new varieties at Garden,
171; plant cut back and grown a second
year, 100; propagation of, from cuttings,
166, 107, from seed, 171; seed-pod of,
171; show at the Garden, 7, 178

Poinsettia pulcherrima, Dec. cover, 168, 169,
var. plenissima, 108, 170

Polypodium medullare, 30

Ponga ware, 29, Feb. cover

Potato, the world’s biggest food crop, 85;
diseases, 87; famine in Ireland, 87; grow-
ing in Europe, 86, in South America, 85,
in the United States, 88; history of, 86;
illustration of, from an old herbal, of
plant bearing flowers and fruits, 87; old

Peruvian pottery showing representation
of, 85, 86
Pottery, old Peruvian, representation of

potato varieties on, SO

“Proof of the Pudding”, 78

Propagation, plant: class in new methods of,
151, 179

Protein in algae, 140

Pruning: persimmons, 39; roses, 83; woody
plants, 149

Publications, Garden, during 1952, 27

Published articles by staff and graduate stu-
dents during 1952, 23

Puya alpestris, 128

Q

Quail, hybrid, Shouldn’t we try, along with
hybrid corn?, 34

Queen, Veiled Prophet's: the new, 734; orchid
bouquet presented by Garden to, 6, Oct.
cover; visits the Garden, 133, 733, 134

Quercus palustris, disease of, 46

Quest, The, 79

R

Rancho Santa Anita, 136

Redoute’s “Les Roses’, 65

Redwood, Dawn, 8

Reid, Hugo, 136

Rest period for the Christmas Cactus, 174

Revenue at Garden, 1

Rhynchospora phaceloides, 3

River valley development in Missouri, 30

Roberts’ Caterpillar Club from New Zealand,
93, O5; economic uses of, 96

Rose: diseases, 64, 87; evolution of the, 80;
garden, Creating a, 82; garden at the Mis-
sourt Botanical Garden, 73; growing as a
hobby, 84; history of the, 75, 79; hobby-
ist, 79, 84; Marmalade, 83; plan for a
garden, 82; quest for knowledge concern-
ing, 79; testing, 72, 77

MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Rosa alba, 66, 67, 68, 74, 84; altaica, 74;
centifolia, 74; damascena, 74; gallica, 75,
var. versicolor, 75; Hugonis, 74; multi-
flora, 71, 73; rugosa, 73

Rose Society of Greater St. Louis: show of,
6; Special Bulletin prepared by, 61-84

Rose varieties: American Pillar, April cover;
Apricot, 66; Buccaneer, 78; California
Angels Mateu, 83; Coquette des Alpes, 84;
Crimson Glory, 71, 77; Editor McFarland,
83; Fanny Bias, 75; Fashion, 77, 78; Frau
Karl Druschki, 70; Harison’s Yellow, 71,
74, 75; Hermosa, 75, 75; Lancaster, 75;
Louise Odier, 75; Lowell Thomas, 71;
Ma Perkins, 78; Maiden’s Blush, 74; Marie
Louise, 74; Mme. Hardy, 74; Mrs. Arthur
Curtiss James, 70; Old Blush, 66, 80; Paul
Neyron, 76; Peace, 71, 77; Pigmy Gold,
76, 79; Radiance, 71; Remembrance, 78;
Rosamundi, 75; Schailer’s Provence, 66,
68; Souv. de la Malmaison, 75; Sweet
Brier, 74; Symphony, 78; Vogue, 78;
York, 75; Zephirine Drouhin, 75

Roses: at the Garden, 5, 73; books on, 65;
Bourbon, 68, 75, 75; Chinese, 62, 66, 75,
80; cinnamon, 62; Climber, 70, 76, 79;
Damask, 65, 66, 68, 74, 80; diseases of,
64, 81; for the St. Louis area, 63, 74;
from one amateur to another, 63; fertil-
izing, 71; Floribunda, 71; Hybrid Per-
petual, 66, 70, 76; grow on you, 69;
Hybrid Tea, 66, 69, 71, 78, 83, 84; in-
sects attacking, 69, 8&7; insecticides, 69,
71; Monthly, 66, 80; Moss, 74; nothing to
growing, 72; old, I hunted, 65; old-fash-
ioned, 74, 84; planting, 63, O04, 71, 82;
preparation of soil, 63, 82; protection of,
64; pruning, 83; Shrub, 60, 74, 75; soil
for, 63, 64, 82; species and old-fashioned,
that do well in the St. Louis area, 74;
spraying, 72, 84; test garden for, 62, 72,
77; watering, 73

Rudbechia missouriensis, 113

Rudolph, Emanuel, 19: Thought for food
from Algae, 140

Rumanian Ivy, 101, 703, June cover

S

“Saga of the Meramec,” 131

Saguaro, 122

Saint-Hilairee’s ‘Flora Brasiliae Meridionalis’’,
a7

St. Louis area: Lamartine lilacs for, 90; rose
cultivation in the, 63; species and old-
fashioned roses that do well in the, 74

St. Louis Globe-Democrat’s sponsorship of
“Saga of the Meramec”, 131

St. Louis Horticultural Society’s
show, 6

San Marino, see Huntington Botanical Gar-
den, 124

spring

187

Scatcherd, John Newton: Cattleyas make ex-
cellent house plants, 36; Orchids like “oak-
beer’, 91

Schlumbergera Brid gesii, 173

Seaweeds as food, 140

Seibert, Russell J., 136

Shaw School of Botany, degrees awarded in,
21, 116; graduate students, 21

Shaw’s city residence, central detail from
gate of, Jan. cover; see Old Residence

Shrubs, winter care of, after a dry spell, 149

Signs in vestibule of Palm House, 3

Skallerup, Harry R.: Our self-pruning per-
simmon, 39

Slippery Elm branches, forcing of, 42

Snowdrops, 33

Solanum capsicastrum, 177; fendleri, 86;
pseudo-capsicum, 177; tuberosum, 85

Sophrolaeliocattleya “Mo Bot Gard.,” 14

Sotal plant, 128

“Spigot on the Hill’, 131

Spring of 1953, 89

Spurges, 127; Blue, 127

Staghorn Ferns, 119

Steyermark, Julian A., 18: Missouri Plant
Survey, 15
Succulents: at the Garden, 1; in Mme,

Walska’s California garden, 117; at Hunt-
ington Botanical Garden, 123

Sweet Gum, Christmas tree ornaments from
seed-balls of, 177

Syringa oblata var. Giraldi, 90; hyacinthi-
flora, 90

Systematic and floristic research during 1952,
20

T

Telegraph Pole plant, 123

Texas: letter from, to George Engelmann,
54; Lindheimer’s map of, 55

“Tower Grove’, see Old Residence

Tree fern, New Zealand, 29

Trees and shrubs, Winter care of, 149

Trichocereus thelegenus, 125

Tryon, Alice F.: Meet William Withering,
107

Tryon, Rolla M., 20: A letter from Texas
to George Engelmann, 54

U

Upland Cress in the house and in the vege-
table garden, 40

Vv

Van Schaack, George B., 20: Jointed Goat-
grass, 114, 175

Vegetable garden, Upland Cress in the, 40

Veiled Prophet Queen: visits the Garden,
133; orchid bouqut presented to, by Gar-
den, 6, 14, Oct. cover

Vino de Coyal, 48

188 “ISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN

Viscum album, 176

Visitors to Garden during 1952, 27

“Voice of the Rose,” 72

von Schrenk, Hermann, 50,57; von Schrank’s
“Flora Monacensis”” rebound in) memory
of, 53

W

Walsh’s, Mrs. Edward, library, gift of, to
Garden, 164

Walska, Mme. Ganna,
prized Cacti, 119

Walska’s, Ganna, Lotusland, 117; house, 120,
with Torch Cacti planted against it, 720

Wapapello Dam, 32

Washingtonis filifera, 138; robusta, 138

Water-lily pools, 4

Watering trees and shrubs, 150

Watershed district as an approach to river
development in Missouri, 30

Weather during 1952, 5, 12

Wildflowers: Glade Black-eyed Susan, 113;
Indian Paint-brush, 112, 772; Pepper and
Salt, 45; trails ac Arboretum, 12

some of her

beside

Williams, P. D., breeding of narcissi by, 154

Window-gardening care of poinsettia, 163,
167

Wine from Coyol Palm, 48

Winter care of trees and shrubs, 149

Wisteria, Chinese, at Huntington Botanic
Garden, 129

Witch-hazel, Ozark, 89

Withering, William, 107

Woodcocks at Missouri Botanical Garden

Arboretum, 148
Wooden Rose vine, 3
Woodson, Robert E., 20
Woody plants, winter care of, 149

Y

Yucca australis, 128

Z

Zygocactus truncatus, 172
Zygocactus truncatus, 165

THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

JoHN 'S. LEHMANN, President

DanieEL K. CaTLin, Vice-President
EUGENE Pettus, Second Vice-President

DupbLEY FRENCH
Henry HitrcHcock

RicHarp J. Lockwoop
Georce T. Moore

A. WesseL SHAPLEIGH
ETHAN A. H. SHEPLEY
RoBERT BROOKINGS SMITH

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS
Oscar EHRHARDT,

ARTHUR H. Compton,

Chancellor of Washington University

ARTHUR C. LICHTENBERGER,
Bishop of the Diocese of Missouri

RAYMOND R. TUCKER,
Mayor of the City of St. Louis

President of the Board of Education
of St. Louis

STRATFORD L. Morton,

Secretary

President of the Academy of Science
of St. Louis

GERALD ULRICI,

THE HORTICULTURAL COUNCIL
Clarence Barbre, A. C. Chandler, E. G. Cherbonnier, Paul Hale, Mrs. Hazel
Knapp, Martin Lammert III, Emmet Layton, Elinor McClure, Clarence Mc-
Govern, W. F. Scott, Jr., Mrs. J. Garneau Weld, Harold E. Wolfe, John S.
Lehmann, Edgar Anderson, John Nies, Chairman.

George T. Moore o>
John S. Lehmann........-—-.---:
Edgar Anderson __
Leicester B. Faust

Carroll W. Dodge... tee

Robert E. Woodson, Jr... --------
Ri cnry Nie Amare Wh reer
Rolla M. Tryon...

Hugh C. Cutler

Robert J. Gillespie ae
John D. Dwyer-...-..--..----------
George B. Van Schaack.___-

Julian A. Steyermark ee eee

Nell C. Horner :

STAFF

Edna Mepham. —
Kaleo] M boy ol co) 01 Re ene eee

Gerald Ulrici_.._....... STONE ee REET]

George H. Pring —-.......-

_..Honorary Curator of Grasses

Werald Avy OW sees a SB

Ladislaus Cutak........

___ Emeritus Director

Acting Director
pees __..... Assistant Director
_.... Executive Assistant
Mycologist
Curator of Herbarium
ee Paleobotanist

Assistant Curator of Herbarium
Curator Museum of Economic Plants

__..._ Research Horticulturist
— Research Associate
Honorary Research Associate
_.. Librarian and Editor
tone: Assistant Librarian
__ Assistant Librarian
_....... Business Manager
____.... Superintendent
te __. Floriculturist

_.. Horticulturist in charge of Conservatories

che telete al oy SAR | (2. ee ene ee ee a eee _.. Dendrologist
ee WE Nese se ee eee _ Engineer
August P. Beilmann Manager of the Arboretum, Gray Summit

LouisrG. brenner = es

G. R. Lowry.

Assistant Manager of the Arboretum

In charge of Orchids