The Botanical Garden of Saint-Pierre, 1803-1902 RICHARD A, HOWARD and CLAUDE \I\1EBER ______398
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TIIE ~ERICAN ~GAZINE AMERICAN HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 1600 BLADEN BURG ROAD, NURT II EAST / WASHINGTON, D. c. 20002 For United Horticulture *** to accumulate, incTeasc, al1d disseminate hOTticultural information Editorial Committee Directors FRANCIS DE Vos, Chairman Terms Exphing 1966 1- HAROLD CLARKE JOHN L. CREECH Washing tOil FREDERIC P. LEE FREDER IC P. LEE Maryland CARLTON P. LEES CONRAD B. LINK Massachusetts RUSSELL J. SEIBERT FREDER ICK G . MEYER Pennsylvania DONALD W 'ATSON WILBUR H. YOUNGMAN Hawaii Terms Expiring 1967 MRS. ROBERT L. EMERY, JR. Officers Louisiana A. C. HILDRETH PRESIDENT Colorado DAVID LEACH JOHN H. WALKER Pennsylvania A lexandria, Virginia CHARLES G. MEYER New York FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT MRS. STANLEY R OWE Ohio FRED C. GALLE Pine Mountain, Georgia Terms Expiring 1968 FRANCIS DE Vos Maryland SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT MRS. ELSA U. KNOLL TOM D. THROCKMORTON California Des l'vloines, Iowa VICTOR R IES Ohio STEWART D. WINN ACTING SECRETARY-TREASURER Georgia GRACE P. WILSON ROBERT WINTZ Bladensburg, Maryland Illinois The American Horticultural Magazine is the official publication of the American Horticultural Society and is issued four times a year during the quarters commencing with January, April, July and October. It is devoted to the dissemination of knowledge in the science and art of growing ornamental plants, fruits, vegetables, and related subjects_ Original papers increasing the historical, varietal, and cultural know ledges of plant materials of economic and aesthetic importance are welcomed and will be published as early as possible_ The Chairman of the Editonal Committee should be consulted for manuscript specifications. Reprints will be furnished in accordance with the following schedule of prices, plus post age, and should be ordered at the time the galley proof is returned by the author: One hundred copies--2 pp $7.20; 4 pp $13.20; 8 pp $27.60; 12 pp $39.60; Covers $13.20. Second class postage pa id at Baltimore, Maryland a nd at additional mailing offices. Copyright, © 1966 by The American Horticultural Society, I nc. The American H orticultural J\lfa.gazine is inc1uded as a benefit of mem bership in The American Horticu ltura l Society, Individual Membership dues being 6.00 a year. OCTOBER. 1966 FORMERLY TI-IE NATIO NAl. I-IORTI CtiLTliRAL MAGAZI NE VOU IME '15. NlIi\IBER If Contents Datura Species in Florida Gardens EDWIN A. M ENN INGER _______________________________________________________________________________________ 375 Observations on Deciduous Magnolias in Florida Ro BERT L. EGO LF ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 388 Araucarias Cul,tivated in Australia T. R. LOTHIAN _________________________ __ ___ __________________________________________________________________ 393 The Botanical Garden of Saint-Pierre, 1803-1902 RICHARD A, HOWARD and CLAUDE \I\1EBER _______________________________ _____________________ 398 Field Mice \1\1. J. HAMILTO N JR. ______________________________________________________________________________________ 404 Two Peruvian Species of Salvia of Ornamental and Ethnobotanic Value PROF. CESAR VARGAS C. ___________ ____ ______________________________________________________ _______________ 408 Woody Plants-for Bonsai and Container Growing LEE Roy BYRD, lVI.D. ________________________________________________________________________________________ 410 The Gardener's Pocket Book A Maple with Girdling Roots-R. JEFFERSO N__________________ ______ __ _____________________ 417 Propagation of Hibiscus Cuttings-Co S. KENNEDy ___________________ ____________________ 418 Exotic and Native Ornamentals in Shenandoah National Park-PETER MAZZEO __________________ __ _________________ ______ __ _____________________ 419 Four New Cu1tivars of Ornamental Trees from Romania-T. R. DUDLEy __________________________________________________________________ 421 Jindai Botanical Park, Tokyo, J apan-J. L. CREECH _________________ __________________ 422 A Book or Two --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ____________ ______ 425 OCTOBER COVER ILLUSTRATION The flowers of DatUl'a sanguinea hang straight down. The inflated calyx is half the length of the calyx, then light yellow, followed by red on the upper part including the limb and the corolla. The corolla is about 10 inches long, green from the base to beyond the end of the teeth,-Photo Copyright By 1- E. Downward, Datura suaveolens with a toothed calyx and white flowers. The conglomerate anthers are not visible in the photograph. Datura Species in Florida Gardens By EDWIN A. MENNINGERl Florida homeowners cultivate half a but complaining of the "great confus~on dozen kinds of Datu.ra) loosely called in botanical literature in connectIOn angel trumpets, mostly for their excep with the specific identity ... of some of tionally large white, red, orange, yellow, the most common species." Blakeslee or purple flowers, yet two anomalies held that "more studies are needed to crop up: clarify the taxonomy of the genus," and (1) Nobody ever picks Datum flow Dell\!olf struggled with the "discrepan ers for a bouquet. They may be the cies and inaccuracies in the nomencla largest and most spectacular blossoms in ture." the garden, but they stay on the plant The confusion ,these scholars speak of and never get into the house. o·oes back to Linnaeus. His original (2) The Datura plants themselves description of D. m etel (1753) was are so varied, and the reference book based on an Indian plant with glabrous descriptions of them are so mixed up leaves the Asiatic "metel-nut" which and full of errors, that it is a rare had been used as a narcotic by the o-ardener indeed who knows which Da Arabs, Persians, and Hindus long before t.ura grows in his y;ard. the discovery of America. It was de The flowers are avoided in bouquets not scribed by Avicenna in the Eleventh only because they are awkward, usually Century. In Ithe second edition of Spe drooping instead of erect, and very short cies Plantarum (1762) Linnaeus seems lived when removed from the plant, but to have overlooked the fact that he had because some kinds have flowers as well originally described the glabrous Indian as foliage bearing offensive o.r narcotic plant; now he inserted the word "rubes odors, and this has made 'all of them cent," which is not true of the speCIes he outcasts. Actually a few kinds have flow was describing, and the trouble began. ers with a delightful fragrance, but these Dunal in DeCandolle's Prodromus cannot live down the bad name of their (1852) made matters worse by transfer relatives. ring the name D. m etel from Asia to an The confusion in nomenclature goes American pliant described by .Mill~r back several hundred years. No taxon (1768) under the name of D. moxU/.. omist has attempted a complete, sys Several later botanists followed this lead, tematic overhaul of the genus, with the including C. B. Clarke in J. D. Hooker's result that the contradictory descriptions Flora of British India who applied the of the various species are overwhelming name D. metel <to the introduced Ameri to the layman. Fortunately for ,the non can species 0'£ "downy thorn apple". botanist, partial examinations of the In the two principal modern reference principal species in cultivation have works on e-eneral horticulture, Bailey been made recently by three scientists, (4) and Chittenden (5), these original Safford (1), Bl:akeslee (2), and Dell\! olf confusions multiply. Bailey attributes D. (3) . By piecing these analyses Itogether it metel to Linnaeus, then goes on Ito say is possible, with the aid of a few OIther that it has a lO-lobed corolla. This is reference works and some photographs, true of the Mexican plant (D. inoxia) to explain in nontechnical langua~e the but not of the Indian (5 lobes) . W. J. essential distinctions between cultIvated Bean in Chittenden says D. metel has species and at last give correct names to flowers 10 inches long; this is nOit true some of the plants in Florida gardens. for either the Indian plant or the Mexi Safford made the most comprehensive can. The flowers actually are 6-inches, survey of the genus, defining 24 species, rarely 7 inches long. Bailey picks up the Linnaean error of the second edition 1 Edwin A. 1\{enryingcr, D .Se., Drawer 45, Stu art, Floricb 33494. and calls D. m etel pubescent; Bean says 375 PHOTO BY rVES DEl..ANGE, UNIV. OF MONTPELLIER, FRANCE This is Datura inoxia, the Mexican plant to which Dunal assigned the name D. meteI, thereby confusing it with the Indian plant to which Linnaeus had given the name D. mete! 99 years earlier. The foliage of the two plants is similar but the white flowers of the Mexican plant, with reflexed corolla of 1 0 lobe.~ separated by caudate teeth, are entirely different from the trumpet. shaped blossoms of the Indian plant with their 5 lobes. it is hairy. Neither of these authors the principal specIes makes them incon describes the plant Linnaeus had in sisten t. mind in his original text. Several varie So much for the disordered back ties of the Indian D. m etel are in com ground of the genus, though the ram~fi mon cultivation in Flo'rida, hence the cations continue to .appear as the speCIes descriptions by Bailey and Bean do not under cultivation in Florida are exam apply. Bailey describes D. fastuosa L. as ined. glabrous; Bean says it is "downy or glabrous"- (author plays safe!) . Actual Herbaceous Forms ly, D. fastuosa is only a purple-flowered The common herbaceous or sub form of D. metel, so both authors con shrubby Datura in Florida g'ardens be tradict themselves. long to the Indian species D. metel as This confusion g-oes on and on. Bean originally described by Linnaeus. They recognizes D. cornigem Hook., as a tree are low plants, rarely more than 3 feet form to 10 feet; Bailey consigns it to the high, usually gTown as annuals although shrubs and says it is 3-4 feet. "Whether often everg-reen and persisten t. over this plan t wi th its very fragrant white several years. The flowers, 6 to 7 1l1ches flowers gTOWS in Florida, is uncertain.