Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Lake Tours, about three miles from the city, and is a large tree. This specimen probably disappeared long ago, and we have no means now of determining its origin or between what two species it was a hybrid.

Recently Prof. C. S. Sargent has discovered other hybrid walnuts in the neighborhood of Boston, and figured and described one in Garden and Forest for Oct. 31, 1894. He says: "My attention was first called to the fact by observing that a tree which I had supposed was a so-called English walnut (Juglans regia), in the grounds connected with the Episcopal school of Harvard college, at Cambridge, was not injured by the cold of the severest winters, although Juglans regia generally suffers from cold here, and rarely grows to a large size. This individual is really a noble tree; the trunk forks, about five feet above the surface of the ground, into two limbs, and girths, at the point where its diameter is smallest, fifteen feet and two inches. The divisions of the trunk spread slightly and form a wide, round-topped head of pendulous branches of unusual symmetry and beauty, and probably sixty to seventy feet high. A closer examination of this tree showed that it was hardly to be distinguished from Juglans regia in habit, in the character of the bark, or in the form and coloring of the leaves, and that the oblong nut, with its thick shell deeply sculptured into narrow ridges, was the slightly modified nut of our native butternut, Juglans regia. Two other trees with the same peculiarities were afterwards found. One is a large, widespreading specimen, with a trunk diameter of four feet three inches about two feet above the surface of the ground, and just below the point where it divides into three large limbs. is on the grounds of Mr. Eben Bacon of Jamaica Plain, and is supposed to have been planted between fifty and sixty years ago. The other has a tall, straight trunk, with a diameter of three feet one inch at three

This

feet above the surface of the ground, and is growing on a farm near Houghton's Pond, in Milton, at the base of the southeastern slope of the Blue Hills.”

That there should be hybrid walnuts is nothing strange or wonderful, and we often marvel that there should be so few of them in regions where two or more species are growing in close proximity in the same forest or elsewhere, but from whence came these specimens in Massachusetts is somewhat of a mystery. We may safely conclude, however, that the hybridizing did not occur there, but somewhere else, and either the nuts or small seedling trees were introduced and planted where these hybrid specimens are now growing. It is possible that they are descendants of the old hybrid walnut tree of New York city, mentioned by Le Conte and Dr. Torrey, some one having sent nuts or seedlings to friends in Massachusetts, and the three trees described by Prof. Sargent are merely those which have survived until the present day, these retaining the hybrid characteristics of their parent. These hybrids may or may not possess any special economic value, but they are of considerable scientific interest, and for this reason alone are well worthy of careful preservation and extensive propagation.

Butternut Sugar.-It has often been claimed that sugar can be made from the native butternut tree, and while it is true that the sweetish sap flows readily from wounds made in this tree in early spring, the amount and quality of sugar to be obtained from it is scarcely worthy of serious attention. In my boyhood days butternut syrup and sugar were considered as "sticky jokes" of the sugar camp.

Hybrids in California.-Mrs. Ninetta Eames, writing, in the American Agriculturist, of new varieties of walnuts in California, refers to certain species and varieties growing in that State, as follows:

[graphic]

FIG. 77. FLOWERING BRANCH OF HYBRID WALNUT. J. reaia X J. Californica.

"On one of the avenues in Santa Rosa there are some dozen or so ornamental shade trees, which invariably attract the passers. It is not only that they are uncommonly beautiful, but that there is something unfamiliar about them. One unhesitatingly pronounces them 'walnuts,' from their unmistakable likeness to both the English walnut and the native species found growing along the streams of middle and southern California. They are, in fact, a cross between the Juglans regia and J. Californica, the wild black walnut of this State. In its appearance, this magnificent hybrid is nicely balanced between both parents, but it is superior to either of them in beauty and luxuriance of foliage, and in its phenomenal growth. There is, indeed, but one tree, the eucalyptus, that grows more rapidly. In speaking of this quality in the new walnut, Mr. Luther Burbank says: It often excels the combined growth of both parents, adding twelve to sixteen feet to its hight in one year. Given like conditions, a budded six-year-old hybrid is twice as large as a black walnut at twenty years of age.'

"The clean cut, bright green leaves make a remarkable showing, being all the way from two feet to a yard in length, and of graceful, drooping habit (Fig. 77). They are sweet-scented, too,-a delightful fragrance, resembling that of June apples. Another admirable feature of this hybrid walnut is its smooth, grayish bark, with white marblings not unlike the Eastern sugar maple. The wood is compact, with lustrous, satiny grain, and takes an elegant polish, which gives it unmistakable commercial value. Like the majority of hybrids, though blossoming freely it yields a scant crop of nuts, one or two annually on a single tree, and this only after twelve years of persistent barrenness. The seed, when planted, goes back to its parent distinctiveness,-onehalf turning out to be English walnuts and the other

[graphic]

FIG. 78. HYBRID WALNUT. J. nigra J. Californica.

[graphic]

FIG. 79. HYBRID WALNUT, SHELL REMOVED. J. nigra X J. Californica.

« AnteriorContinuar »