APRIL 2S 1S9S. 



The Weekly Florists* Review. 



865 



Group of Sarracenias. 



wide in its distribution and sliowing 

 much variation of form and haljit, 

 were all uniform as to tlieir methods 

 of capture. The little tentacles or hair- 

 like appendages of the leaves secreted 

 a viscid matter, and any little tly or 

 insect that happened to alight thereon 

 was assuredly stuck and its doom 

 sealed. 



The independent and collective 

 movements were explained whereby 

 the capture was conveyed to the center 

 of the leaf and there bathed in a fluid 

 of a nature analogous to that of the 

 digestive fluids in the stomachs of ani- 

 mals. In proof of this, he cited and 

 related some of Darwin's extensive ex- 

 periments, showing that not only the 

 soft bodies of small insects, but meat 

 and cartilage could be digested, and 

 all the animal matter extracted from 

 bone, so that only its mineral con- 

 stituents remained, which crumbled to 

 dust when touched. Darwin actually 

 arrested the process of digestion upon 

 some leaves with which he was ex- 

 perimenting by adding a grain of car- 

 bonate of soda to the secretions of the 

 leaf glands. The carbonate of soda 

 was then neutralized by hydrochloric 

 acid and the digestive process recom- 

 menced. 



Venus' Fly Trap (Dionea muscipula), 

 a native of North Carolina, was next 

 described — a veritable plant marvel 

 that closed its leaves with electric 

 rapidity, as its leaf surfaces were dry, 

 with no secretions to assist in catch- 

 ing. Only after the insect was en- 

 trapped did secretion begin. Then the 

 leaf glands poured out the essential 

 fluid to ensure digestion of the cap- 

 tured food. The nepenthes, sarracenias 

 and darlingtonias, with their quaint 

 and capacious pitchers, were catching 

 insects in different ways, but with the 

 one set purpose, whilst yet other 



methods of capture, as seen in utricu- 

 larias, pinguiculas and aldrovandas 

 were briefly described. 



Of extreme interest botanically, there 

 was also a commercial aspect that 

 might appeal to some of those pres- 

 ent, for not a few of these plants were 

 highly ornamental. Large collections 

 of nepenthes were maintained in Eu- 

 ropean gardens, but nearer home there 

 was much available material in the 

 sarracenias of the eastern states and 

 the darlingtonias of the west. These 

 plants were beautiful as well as singu- 

 lar; ihey could be easily and cheaply 

 collected in large quantities, and 

 should find a ready sale if put upon 

 the market in an attractive manner as 

 nice, well-grown plants in pots, or, 

 better still, broad, shallow pans. 



spares, and on cultivation is found to 

 belong to the well-known aerobic 

 group of bacteria known as the hay 

 bacilli, resembling very closely the Ba- 

 cillus mycoides so frequently found in 

 soil, and the Bacillus megatherium. It 

 appears to grow easily upon all the 

 usual culture media. Before its pre- 

 cise place amongst bacterial fertilizers 

 can be determined, many more elabo- 

 rate and carefully conducted experi- 

 ments must be carried out. — Garden- 

 ers' Magazine. 



A BACTERIAL FERTILIZER. 



Under the name of "alinit" a new 

 manure has been recently introduced. 

 The discoverer of this material is 

 Herr Caron, of Ellenbach; and alinit 

 in its present form is the outcome of 

 four years' experimental investiga- 

 tions on the bacterial flora of different 

 soils, resulting in the isolation of a 

 particular bacillus, upon the presence 

 of which would appear to depend to 

 an important extent the fertility of 

 certain soils. Caron has, according to 

 Nature, already obtained striking 

 results on an experimental scale with 

 crops from soil treated with pure cul- 

 tures of this bacillus — EUenbachensis 

 alpha, as he has called it. Alinit is 

 sent out as a creamy-yellow powder, 

 of which the nitrogenous constituents 

 have been ascertained to be 2.."i per 

 cent. Its closer investigation has been 

 made the subject of memoirs by Stok- 

 lasa. of Prague, and also Messrs. Stut- 

 zer and Hartleb. The bacillus is con- 

 tained in this powder in the form of 



EFFECT OF SOILS ON COLOR. 



We are familiar with the effects of 

 different soilsand chemicals on the col- 

 or of flowers of Hydrangea hortensis. 

 Through the insertion of iron nails, 

 iron rust, steel filings, common alum, 

 green vitriol, into the pots or root- 

 runs of hydrangea, the colors of the 

 flowers are more or less changed from 

 purple to blue. It was never, however, 

 made very obvious why solutions of 

 common alum favored the change to 

 blue more than sulphates or salts of 

 iron. At the last meeting of the Bo- 

 tanical Society in Edinburgh, Dr. Ait- 

 ken read an interesting paper on the 

 color of flowers as affected by the 

 character of the soil in which they 

 grow. After referring to the generally 

 known fact in relation to the hydran- 

 gea. Dr. Aitken quoted Mr. Barr, the 

 greatest of oiu- daffodil growers, as 

 testifying to having noticed that daf- 

 fodils possessed a much deeper tint 

 when grown on some soils than when 

 grown on others. It has also been no- 

 ticed by other cultivators that on some 

 peats hydrangeas come blue without 

 either alum or salts of iron, and that 

 daffodils and other bulbs are consider- 

 ably modified in color. Mr. Barr had 

 sent three samples of soil to Dr. Ait- 

 ken, who analyzed them, and exhibited 



