Garden and forest [Volume 4, Issue 187]

Garden and Forest.

sional points at greater elevation. Of humbler plants, Heuchera
f5ubescens and Linncea borealis are the most conspicuous, the
latter, in great profusion and of great vigor, spreading widely
under the adjacent Pines and Hemlocks, where it seems perfectly at home. One can scarcely imagine a more perfect
example of a high northern flora localized on a few square
rods, because of favorable temperature conditions.
As if to give emphasis to this little boreal colony among the
rocks, there is found, scarce two hundred yards away, a narrow
intervale bordering the stream, which here makes another
abrupt turn. Upon this alluvial bottom grow a score or more
of vigorous Papaws (Aximinia triloba), with trunks six, eight
anrid ten inches in diameter. Their lustrous dark green and
pendent leaves mark them at a distance as distinct from any
other native tree, and suggest a grove of Horse Chestnuts.
They must have been here a long time, for they seem perfectly
established, fruit readily, and young trees are not uncommon.
One such clump, strangely placed high and dry on the border
of the dusty pike two hundred yards away, seems quite successful in its struggle for existence. Professor Porter long ago
told me that the Papaw followed the Juniata, and was found at
the mouth of Spruce Creek. He may have referred to these
same trees. I know of no others to the north, and infer that these
mark the furthest pointfor this species in the mountain districts.
A fine Aristolochia Si-5ho, clambering over and well-nigh
smothering a Red Cedar, seemed to add to the southern character of this Papaw bottom.
A grove of stately White Pines completes the attractions of
this unique spot, which is a favorite picnicking ground for the
neighborhood. In the early summer such parties frequently
make ice-cream on the spot, using the ice taken out of the
holes in the rocks.
State College, Pa. TV. A. Buckhout.
Notes on North American Trees. —XXVIII.
T HE synonymy of the Texas Cercis, or Red Bud, is
peculiar. This plant appears to have been first collected by Berlandier, in the region of the lower Rio Grande,
as long ago as November, 1828, one of his specimens of
that date being preserved in the Gray Herbarium. Lindheimer, many years afterward, found it at New Braunfels
and sent it to Engelmann, who called it Cerczs reniformis,
but did not publish his name, or anything about the plant.
Gray, in the second part of the " Plantie Lindheimerian "
(Bost. Jour. Nat. Hist., i85o, p. 177), was the first author
to describe it, making it a variety of C. occidenlalis, "var.
florzibus etlam paulo minorzb3us, folzs supra nzti&doribus," referring to the C. renzformis, Engelmann, but without taking up
Engelmann's manuscript name for his variety and without
giving it another. Torrey next mentioned it in i859 in
the "Botany of the Mexican Boundary Survey" as C. occidentalis, confounding it with the California species, and
Hemsley, -much later, did the same in his " Botany of the
Biological Survey of Central America." Watson, in his
"Bibliographical Index to North American Botany," next
called the Texas Cercis C. occidentalis, var. Texensis, but in
the "Botany of California," and later, in a list of plants
from south-western Texas and northern Mexico, collected
chiefly by Dr. Edward Palmer in 1878-80, and published
in vol. xvii. of the Proceedings of the American Academy,
called it C. renzformzs. This name, as of Engelmann, had,
moreover, appeared many years before without description in Roemer's work on Texas, in which it was, no
doubt, included by Scheele, who supplied the botanical
parts on the strength of specimens which Engelmann had
probably sent to the Berlin Herbarium, with which he was
always in active correspondence.
From this it appears that the first published specific or
varietal name is Watson's C. occidentalis, var. Texenszis, and
the Texas plant, being considered distinct from the California species, should be called C. Texensis.
Mr. Sereno Watson calls my attention to the fact that

the date of the publication of Ventenat's " Description des
Plantes Nouvelles et peu Connues Cultivees dans le Jardin
de J. M. Cels" is not 1803, as I had supposed, but I8oo,
which, being the date of the publication of Robinia viscosa,
that name must take precedence of Robinia gtluinosa.
C. S. Sargent.

Filices Mexicanme. —— 1.
\W 7 1E take pleasure in offering our readers an enumeration of the Ferns collected in the states of Nuevo
Leon, Jalisco, San Louis Potosi and Machoacan, Mexico,
during the seasons of i888, 1889 and 1890, by C. G. Pringle,
of Charlotte, Vermont, with notes and descriptions of new
species and varieties by George E. Davenport, of Medford,
Massachusetts.
Mr. Pringle's Fern collections are now so well known that
it may be of interest to preface these notes with some extracts
from his correspondence, in which he describes the regions
where, for the most part, the Ferns herein enumerated grew.
Writing from Chihuahua, under date of August 4th, I888, he
thus described Monterey and vicinity, where, during the early
part of I888, his collection was principally made: " Delightful
are my memories of Monterey, a quiet pleasant city, with
lofty precipitous mountains round about it on three sides,
mountains furrowed with carnons shady with numerous
grand trees, and musical each with its clear, cold brook.
It is the paradise of Ferns! Common as any weed on the
foot-hills which overlook the city was Adiantum tricholefiis,
so rare hereaway. On limestone ledges or bluffs, soft
and crumbling, whose bases were laved by water, was
Aneimia adiantifolia. A. Mexicana was very abundant on
moist shaded banks of the base of the Sierra Madre. Aspidium Irzfolialum on limestone ledges dripping with water.
On moist shaded banks CGheilazlhes meifolia (Palmer's find of
i88o) was abundant; with it a Pellcea which I don't know, and
an Aspidium strange to me. What I guess to be Llavia
cordifolia was common near brooks of the mountains, and
rare there a Polypodium which I never saw, and in their dark,
cold nooks still another Polypodium, with annual fronds.
Here, of course, Aspidinum ipaens was luxuriant, and sometimes Pteris Cretica."
Pellceaflexuosa, Cheilanlthes leucojoda andi Cheilanthes as-era
are some of the other Ferns mentioned by Mr. Pringle in the
letter just quoted. Subsequently, on his return home to
Charlotte, he sent to me the following interesting account of
The Haunts of Ferns about Gaudalajara ":
" Some six miles northward from the city the great St.
James River (Rio Grande de Santiago) which carries the overflow of Lake Chapala down to the Pacific, falling more than
5,000 feet in a course of 250 miles, has cut a chasm through
the plains which the proud city crowns, and among various
chains of low mountains which interrupt those plains and
this chasm is the great barranca of Gaudalajara. You stand
on the verge of the plain and see the river rushing white,5oo00 feet below you. Beneath your feet are dizzy cliffs on
cliffs, steep grassy slopes and still deeper descents which are
a luxuriant growth of tropical shrubs. Here and there, over
these steeps, springs start from the rock or rise from the soil,
and streams leap down to the river. Against the face of fearful precipices they hang as a slender veil of a waterfall, or they
saturate the rich soil of the thickets. All the diverse situations
on the slopes of the great barranca are the favorite haunts
of some Fern or other, whether it be the dry cliffs in sun or
shade, the ledges of cliffs sprayed by falling water, the
deep shade of thickets clustered by brook-sides, the cool and
moist grassy banks, or the mossy banks and ledges in the
humid forests near the river.
" Down to the river from among the hills come lesser canons,
each with its noisy brook, which sometimes pours over a
precipice in its way, and diffuses over the adjacent walls a perpetual mist or spray.
"Again, just north of the city walls, a strange thing has happened. The occasional floods from the plains above have cut
gullies, sometimes broad, grassy and shaded with trees; sometimes too narrow to admit the passage of your body. The
walls of these are twenty to fifty feet high, perpendicular, firm
sand or gravel, more or less moist. From the foot of these
walls water drips, and close by a a brook flows.
"Still, again, there are conditions favorable to Ferns supplied
by man. It is customary to mark the bounds of highways and
fields by trenches five to ten feet deep. Along the edges of
these are planted, or grow spontaneously, Cactuses and shrubs,
so that shade is provided.

"At the end of my stay I crept for a long way through the
vegetation filling a trench of this sort which borders the
north side of the highway leading westward from the city
gate; and I remember declaring to a friend, as I came out of
it, that I had seen on its steep moist banks nearly all the Ferns
which I had met with in all the region roundabout.

448

[NUMBER I87.