1879. 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



341 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



Full of Bugs.— It is said that the Entomo- 

 logical cabinet of Mr. xVndrew S. Fuller, con- 

 tains eight thousand species of beetles alone. 

 Mr. Fuller estimates there are over 100,000 

 species of insects in the United States. A gen- 

 tleman who visited Ws collection says : " Here 

 Mr. Fuller sat down at the table and began to 

 write. The reporter was about to leave when 

 ,the entomologist said : 'I have given you the 

 little I know concerning one beetle, but to-day 

 there is not one hundred of our North Ameri- 

 can insects whose true history is well known. 

 There is room for a thousand active young men 

 to distinguish themselves in this direction. The 

 pursuit is most fascinating, and no man who has 

 once entered it will ever wish to turn back. 

 Just to give you an idea. One man visited 

 Florida during the Winter and brought back 

 over 1,500 new species of bugs. Another man 

 broke down the bug market in one specialty. 

 He found under a dead Palmetto fan hundreds 

 of bugs that were previously rated at seventy- 

 five dollars apiece.' " 



Abies menziesii. — Dr. Englemann concludes 

 that this name must be wholly dropped. The 

 " Pacific Menziesii" is Picea Sichtensis ; and 

 the '' Colorado Menziesii" is Picea pungens. 



Picea and Abies. — As already noticed in 

 our magazine, these have been confused. What 

 we know as Abies should be Picea, and what 

 are Picea should be Abies. The Firs are the 

 Abies, and the Spruces Picea. About this Mr. 

 Lemmon has the following in the Pacific Rtiral 

 Press : 



"Dr.. George Engelmann, of St. Louis, the 

 closest student of our trees in America, has just 

 published an exhaustive description' of the 

 American Firs, in which he says: 'I follow 

 Link in his name, definition and limitation of 

 the genus Abies, which seems to be a very nat- 

 ural one, comprising the Silver and Balsam Firs.' 



The synonym Picea is the older name, and 

 enjoys the Linnoean prestige, but is contrary to 

 classical (see Pliny and others), and to philolog- 

 ical authority. The name Abies is generally 

 adopted in Europe, while Picea, heretofore prin- 

 cipally used in England, is now being aban- 

 doned. 



Picea is the pitch tree, and properly desig- 

 nates the Spruces. Tournefort, the elder De Can- 

 doUe, Gray and others, comprise under the name 

 Abies both the Spruces and Firs; 'but,' tl.e 



Doctor declares emphatically, ' the generic dis- 

 tinctions between them are abundant, and based 

 on fioral and fruit characters, a.s well as upon the 

 leaf anatomy.' 



• Spruce Family. — The Spruces are distinguished 

 from the Firs by their depending cones growing 

 from any of the limbs, with persistent scales and 

 bracts, and, generally, by their scattered limbs 

 and leaves; also by microscopic anatomy, as 

 shown by Engelmann. They comprise two gen- 

 era, Picea and Tsuga forming the second and 

 third genera of the Abietinae, as stated, differing 

 from each other by but few characters detected 

 at a distance ; five species in California. 



Second genus, Picea, from pix, 'pitch.' The 

 true spruce. Leaves four-sided, and generally 

 scattered all round the long twigs, leaving, when 

 they fall, the foot-stalk, persistent, ligneous and 

 prominent. Bracts concealed beneath the cone- 

 scales." 



. «••> 



SCRAPS AND QUERIES. 



Botanic Gardens. — A Philadelphia corres- 

 pondent has been writing to the American Culti- 

 vator at Boston, complaining of a suggestion 

 that the Cambridge Botanical Garden is superi- 

 or, and names the Missouri Botanic Garden, the 

 Bartrani Gardens, and Fairmount Park for com- 

 parison. The Cultivator seems to refer to us for 

 decision. We can only say that the Cambridge 

 Garden is a long way ahead of anything in tliis 

 co^untry. The Bartram Gardens have little to 

 boast of but a few valuable old trees. Fair- 

 mount Park has done wonderfully well consid- 

 ering how rarely a body under political intki- 

 ences comes to much. Mr. Shaw's garden, con- 

 sidering that it is the work of one man's life- 

 time, is a rare monument of success. It could 

 hardly be expected to compete with an old in- 

 stitution like Cambridge. In short, Cambridge 

 well deserves the honor of being the best bo- 

 tanic garden in the United States. 



COLEUS.— Mrs. D. M. A. asks: ''Will you 

 please give in the Monthly, the derivation and 

 pronunciation of Coleus, and how to form the 

 singular and plural?" [It is an ancient Latin 

 word, signifyiug a peculiar form of bag or purse , 

 and to which Ihe unexpanded Hower has some sup- 

 posed resemblance. It is pronounced as if writ- 

 ten, coal-yus, the e being of very short sound. 

 Gramatically, if you were writing a treatise on 

 Latin, or conversing in the Latin tongue, you 

 would make coleus for the singular and colei for 



