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VOL. XXV AUGUST, 1924 No. 296 JOURNAL OF THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN TROPICAL AMERICAN PLANTS AT HOME—II. THE FUCHSIAS H. H. RUSBY ETHYLENE, OR THE GAS THAT PUTS PLANTS AND ANIMALS TO SLEEP WILLIAM CROCKER THE ROSE GARDEN, 1924 KENNETH R. BOYNTON ROSES AND THEIR CULTURE MARSHALL A. HOWE NESTING OF THE HUMMINGBIRD R. S. WILLIAMS THE FLOWER BEDS KENNETH R. BOYNTON NOTES, NEWS, AND COMMENT ACCESSIONS PUBLISHED FOR THE GARDEN AT 8 WEST KING STREET, LANCASTER. PA. INTELLIGENCER PRINTING COMPANY Annual subscription $1.00 Single copies 10 cents Free to members of the Garden THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN BOARD OF MANAGERS FREDERIC S. LEE, President JAMES F. KEMP HENRY W. DE FOREST, Vice President ADOLPH LEWISOHN F. K. STURGIS, Vice President KENNETH K.MACKENZIE JOHN L. MERRILL, Treasurer W. J. MATHESON N. L. BRITTON, Secretary BARRINGTON MOORE EDWARD D. ADAMS J. P. MORGAN HENRY DE FOREST BALDWIN LEWIS RUTHERFORD MORRIS NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER FREDERIC R. NEWBOLD PAUL D . CRAVATH CHARLES F. RAND ROBERT W. DE FOREST HERBERT M. RICHARDS CHILDS FRICK HENRY H. RUSBY WILLIAM J. GIES GEORGE J. RYAN R.A.HARPER ALBERT R. SHATTUCK JOSEPH P. HENNESSY WILLIAM BOYCE THOMPSON VV. GILMAN THOMPSON JOHN F. HYLAN, Mayor of the City of New York FRANCIS DAWSON GALLATIN, President of the Department of Parks SCIENTIFIC DIRECTORS R. A. HARPER, PH. D., Chairman JAMES F. KEMP, SC D., LL. D. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, PH. D., FREDERIC S. LEE, PH. D., LL. D. LL. D., LITT. D. HERBERT M. RICHARDS, SC. D. WILLIAM J. GIES, PH. D. HENRY H. RUSBY, M. D. GEORGE J. RYAN GARDEN STAFF N.L. BRITTON, PH. D., SC. D., LL. D Director-in-Chief MARSHALL A. HOWE, PH. D., SC. D Assistant Director JOHN K. SMALL, PH. D., SC. D Head Curator of the Museums A. B. STOUT, PH. D Director of the Laboratories P. A. RYDBERG, PH. D Curator H. A. GLEASON, PH. D Curator FRED J. SEAVER, PH. D Curator ARTHUR HOLLICK, PH. D Paleobotanist PERCY WILSON A ssociate Curator PALMYRE DE C MITCHELL Associate Curator JOHN HENDLEY BARNHART, A. M., M. D Bibliographer SARAH H. HARLOW, A. M Librarian H. H. RUSBY, M. D Honorary Curator of the Economic Collections ELIZABETH G. BRITTON Honorary Curator of Mosses MARY E. EATON Artist KENNETH R. BOYNTON, B. S Head Gardener ROBERT S. WILLIAMS Administrative Assistant HESTER M. RUSK, A. M Technical Assistant H. M. DENSLOW, A. M., D. D.. Honorary Custodian of Local Herbarium E. B. SOUTHWICK, PH. D Custodian of Herbaceous Grounds JOHN R. BRINLEY, C. E Landscape Engineer WALTER S. GROESBECK Clerk and Accountant ARTHUR J. CORBETT Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds WALTER CHARLES Museum Custodian JOURNAL OF The New York Botanical Garden VOL. XXV August, 1924 No. 296 TROPICAL AMERICAN PLANTS AT HOME—II. THE FUCHSIAS My collections of native fuchsias have extended from central Mexico to central Chile. I have found none in a locality where frost was known, though sometimes beside ice-cold streams, fed by glaciers several thousand feet higher and almost over them. In all cases, the roots have been more or less shaded but, with the exception of a single species, the flowering branches were always exposed to sunshine. No fuchsia has been encount­ ered growing in full forest shade, and very rarely have I seen them in soil at all subject to aridity. With few exceptions, they de­ mand a soil perpetually moist, but with perfect drainage. In texture, some of the smaller species are almost herbaceous, while others become small trees. While none are really climbing, many possess elongated branches which push through and partly recline upon other shrubbery, and the branches of nearly all droop more or less. While no fixed lines of demarcation can be declared, we can recognize five general types of growth. One group consists of erect shrubs or small trees, with symmetrical crowns. Another comprises tall slender species, growing in thickets or shrub- borders, bearing much elongated and slender branches that droop over and depend from supporting shrubbery. A third group consists of prostrate species, their stems creeping and rooting amidst leaf-mold or other decaying vegetable matter. A fourth group includes low, widely-spreading half-shrubs, inhabiting rocky ledges. The fifth group consists of several very stout stubby shrubs, with scanty foliage, which inhabit arid or desert regions. Of this group, so very exceptional in 213 214 the genus, I am familiar with but one member, Fuchsia rosea R. & P., which inhabits the dry hills of western Chile. So un­ expected is its habit of growth and appearance that no one encountering it without flowers, would be likely to recognize it as belonging to this beautiful genus. It is a low, scraggly, angularly branching shrub of rocky or sandy wastes. Its branches are short, thick and stubby, and some of the smaller ones are modified into thorn-like structures. At the ends of the short twigs some small crowded leaves are borne, but these are entirely absent in the dry season, when the shrub is sufficiently ugly-looking to be repulsive. When in flower, however, which in my experience is about the time at which the leaves appear, it is peculiarly beautiful. Its homely stumps of .branches are then covered with foliage of a lovely soft green and its branches bear dense masses of small, pendent rose-colored flowers, after the manner of the bleeding-heart of our gardens, although the flowers are many times smaller. One or two other species, of similar habit and appearance, and native in the same region, are known to me only through herbarium specimens. In strong contrast with these xerophytic species is F. macrantha Hooker, a species representing group number three of my classification. Like the last, it is but scantily provided with foliage, but for a contrary reason. It inhabits the darkest and densest of thickets, where its main body, a thick and softly woody stem, is buried and rooting in decayed vegetation, which is perpetually moist. These stems are often several yards in length. It appears like a saprophytic plant. At favorabLe points, it projects a short branch into the sunshine, or at least Into the light, and at its end produces a few leaves and a small cluster, often only one or two, of very large and handsome flowers, which may be as much as three inches in length. The tube is narrowly infundibular, the limb short, abrupt and but little spreading. The color varies from a light orange-scarlet to a deep red. The species is widely distributed but nowhere abund­ ant over a large area, at least from Ecuador to Bolivia, mostly between 6000 and 8000 feet altitude. Farther south it is replaced by a species of very similar habit, which I have provisionally referred to Hemsley's Mexican F. salicifolia, though it seems quite unlikely that the same species can inhabit these widely separated localities. The branchlets are much more leafy, the 215 leaves being large and long-acuminate, or almost attenuate, like some willows, from which it takes its name. The flowers, of a light orange-scarlet, are much more slender than those of the last, the very delicate sepals being long-acuminate, like the leaves. Our second-mentioned group probably comprises more than half of the species of the genus and includes most of those attracting the attention of the passing traveller. These species are particularly characteristic of the northern countries of South America, and form a very conspicuous feature in the flora of Colombia. One of the most abundant is Fuchsia venusta HBK., which is also of interest as forming a sort of connecting link with the macrantha group. It is not very tall and ramifies extensively among the surrounding shrubbery. Its leaves are rather scanty and small, but its flowers are abundant at the ends of the branches. The latter are narrow in all parts and of a delicate cherry-red color. Fuchsia magellanica Lam. is a Pata- gonian species that is also somewhat intermediate between the two groups. It differs from the preceding in having very large slender flowers, the sepals being scarlet-red and the petals yellowish. Its pedicels are very long and slender, and its style and stamens are conspicuously exserted. One of the most beautiful members of this group was discovered by myself in the mountains about Huila, in southern Colombia, and which I have named F. filipes, in allusion to the long and filiform stems of the flowers. As one rides along the steep mountain-sides, the dense banks of foliage which flank the road are conspicuously spangled with the large, drooping clusters of these lovely flowers, of a peculiar shade of purplish-red. Not only are the individual flowers long-pendent, but the clusters themselves droop on elongated branchlets. The abundant oblanceolate leaves, about an inch in length, are thin and delicate, but of a very deep green. This species appears closely related to F. coccinea Ait. of Chile, distinguished for the extremely drooping character of its inflorescence. Its filiform pedicels are sometimes three inches in length, and the whole plant is remarkably slender. The flowers are of a bright scarlet-red and more than an inch in length. F. gracilis Lindley, of Mexico, also is of a slender and gracefully drooping habit. It has linear attenuate sepals and Iong-exserted style and stamens. It is peculiar for the diversity of its leaves, 216 very small ones being variously intermingled with much larger ones. A similar species collected by Dr. Pennell and myself near Balsillas, Colombia, with very dense terminal clusters of flowers having an orange tube and scarlet limb, on very short pedicels, is notable for the beauty of its foliage.

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