1870.] NOTES OF THE MONTH. 487 



the gardener, but his presence is worthy of note. A small shining 

 black fellow, his very build is suggestive of capacities for working mis- 

 chief ; and settling on the Scotch Fir, he works his way into the young 

 growth, and tunnelling along the centre of it towards the point, devours 

 its pith, and the shoots shrivel speedily. A large plantation of Pinus 

 sylvestris, growing in the neighbourhood of Bagshot, Surrey, looked as 

 if the surface of the tree had been burned with fire. It would seem 

 this beetle attacks all the true Pines, such as P. Austriaca, P. strobus, 

 &c, but avoids Abies, Picea, and Wellingtonia. Though somewhat 

 pigmy in appearance, this beetle is a formidable foe to planters if he 

 works out his mischievous tendencies similarly as witnessed in this 

 Surrey plantation of Scotch Fir. 



It is very rarely indeed that well-known creeper Wistaria Sinensis 

 produces seed-pods. The fact that in one instance it has done so 

 during the past summer is perhaps also traceable to the drought. 

 When Mr Fortune returned home from his second journey to China, 

 he brought with him five seeds of Wistaria Sinensis. A plant obtained 

 from one of these seeds is now growing in Mr Charles Noble's Sun- 

 ningdale Nursery, at Bagshot, and this plant has this season produced 

 two pods of seed hanging on one stem. In appearance the seed-pods 

 resemble those of a Scarlet-Kunner Bean, but are gathered in, as it were, 

 between each seed, so having an indented appearance. One pod 

 contained three seeds, the other two. A plant of the white variety of 

 Wistaria Sinensis, one of the original plants brought home by Mr For- 

 tune, and growing on a cottage in the same nursery, had bloomed very 

 freely this season — unusually so, probably because a dry season is apt 

 to produce a more floriferous quality. 



The fungologists had a grand field-day at South Kensington on the 

 5th of October last. " Such bad weather for the production of Fungi 

 as that experienced for many weeks previous to the exhibition had 

 not been known for years. The sun had continually shone with de- 

 pressing brightness and warmth, the air had been free from delightful 

 and exhilarating fogs, there had been no drenching rains, no slush, no 

 mud, no nothing. Spores were down, and mycelium paralysed. The 

 enemies of Fungus-eating prophesied a failure ; they said ' vege- 

 table beefsteaks ' would be as rare at South Kensington as bovine 

 steaks at Strasburg, and it would be no good seeking for Hydnums. 

 But the prophets were altogether off the scent ; Fungi in the woods 

 and fields were certainly scarce enough, but the various species shown 

 at South Kensington." So writes Mr Worthington G. Smith in the 

 'Gardeners' Chronicle.' Notwithstanding, some very good collections 

 were staged ; the edible species in one group, the poisonous in 

 another, and the doubtful ones by themselves ; and the leading myco- 



