THE FLORAL WOELD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 343 



years back, where I went at Christmas to look after some new varie- 

 ties. At the town of St. Peter's, which is built on a rock a consider- 

 able height above the sea, I found the chrysanthemum seeded 

 freely, and that many of our newest and best varieties were raised 

 in an alcove on the top of a rock, and about one hundred pots were 

 crowded together in the dry, and all the late blooms of the season were 

 full of seed half ripe. I saw the petals had been carefully cut off 

 with a sharp pair of scissors close to the florets, avoiding disturbing 

 the pollen ; tiie pods were quite firm with the seed. I have prac- 

 tised the same mode myself with perfect success. Mr. Wyness, of 

 Buckingham Palace, has also raised a great quantity of very good 

 varieties. I am persuaded that any one can seed them in the green- 

 houses or dry stoves in this country, if kept free from damp. 



The Pompone Cukxsanthem:um. — About the year 1845, Mr. 

 Fortune brought to the Society's gardens from Chusan a small semi- 

 double reddish light brown chrysanthemum, which he called the Chu- 

 san Daisy, on account of finding it at Chusan. The Society propagated 

 it, and sent it among its members. Thence it got to France, into 

 the hands of M. Lebois, of Paris, an ardent lover of the chrysanthe- 

 mum. He seeded it, the climate being better adapted for ripening 

 the seed than the climate of this country. From the seed thus 

 obtained, he raised a great many beautiful varieties of various 

 colours, some of them exquisitely formed and perfectly symmetrical, 

 and consequently the majority of our present collections came from 

 this source, having been obtained by Mr. Salter, of Hammersmith. 

 Still I find coloured plates of beautiful pompones in the Society's 

 Transactions as far back as February, 1821, which I now exhibit. 



The French gave it the name of pompone on account of its 

 small, compact bloom, resembling the tufc, or ijompon, in a soldier's 

 cap. 



The chrysanthemum, like the rose, holly, celery, and some other 

 plants, is injured by having its leaves mined by catei-pillars, Avhich 

 reside within the leaf, and which feed upon the parenchyma, or pulpy 

 part of the leaf; for if the injured leaves are examined, the interior 

 will be found quite destitute of pulp, and to contain one or several 

 small green grubs, of different sizes, which have eaten all the interior, 

 leaving only the two surfaces of the leaf entire, and those very thin. 

 The grub, when feeding, may be observed through the transparent 

 surface of the leaf using the two bent hooks, or mandibles, which it 

 has the power to retract within, or protrude from the mouth like a 

 pair of scrapers, and by the action of which the parenchyma is 

 entirely destroyed, and brought into a state to pass into the mouth 

 of the larva without difficulty. When the grubs are full-grown, 

 they quit the leaves and descend into the earth, where they gradually 

 shortly afterwards become pupa, and appear to lose all vitality, their 

 form becoming shorter and oval, with the segments distinct, and 

 terminated at each end by two obtuse points. In this state the 

 insect remains buried in the ground until the following spring, when 

 the warmth gives birth to the imago of one of the most beautiful of 

 our species of two-winged flies, which, after throwing off its pupa 

 skin, and bursting through the hardened pellicle of the larva, crawls 



