1882.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



373 



posed to have been evolved from direct contact 

 with this struggle. 



We give here an illustration for the reader to 

 compare with the others of one of these artifi 

 cial productions, a hybrid raised by one of our 

 correspondents, Mr. James Taplin, when he was 

 superintendent of the famous establishment of 

 Mr. George Such, of South Amboy, New Jersey, 

 and named by him Nepenthes Morganae, in com- 

 pliment to Mrs Morgan, the well-known plant 

 lover of New York. The stock was secured by 

 Messrs. Vietch, of Chelsea, London, who thus 

 describe it. "It is of a dwarf neat habit, fur- 

 nished with smooth pale green leaves with red 

 midribs. The pitchers arq flask-shaped, with 

 two rather narrow ciliolate wings, when fully 

 grown are from six to eight inches in length. 

 On the younger plants the pitchers are beauti- 

 fully mottled with bright red and pale green ; 

 in the older plants they are almost self-colored 

 and blood red. The lid is always pale green, 

 ofiering a remarkable contrast to the richly col- 

 ored asciduim or urn. 



Florida Jute.— This proves to be the Urena 

 lobata, a West Indian plant naturalized in 

 Florida. 



White Frost Near Paris — The Revue Horti- 

 cole notes the unusual earliness of white frost 

 around Paris— September 13, 14 and 15— and 

 asks is this an indication of an early and severe 

 winter? In America where we are accustomed 

 to all sorts of extremes, it would not be so con- 

 sidered. 



The First Fuchsia. — The genus Fuchsia was 

 so named by Plumier in 1703. He found the 

 plant in San Domingo — and it was called by Lin- 

 naeus, Fuchsia triphylla; the later Fuchsia tri- 

 phylla of Humboldt, Bonpland and Kunth 

 being another plant, as shown by a recent 

 memoir of Mr. W. B. Hemsley. Strange to say 

 this original species has only recently been in- 

 troduced to the notice of English cultivators 

 through the enterprise of Mr. Thomas Hogg, of 

 New York. 



Another Sheep Killer.— Among the enor- 

 mous number of plants reported to be '' poison- 

 ous to sheep" must now be added Melanthera 

 hastata, a pretty Southern weed allied to the Zin- 

 nia, which F. L Dancy says, in the Florida Dis- 

 patch, is a "deadly poison to sheep." 



The Ailanthus Silk WoRiM. — This was intro 

 duced from France to America, about the 

 beginning of the war, by the late Dr. Thomas 



Stewardson, and is now quite naturalized on 

 ailanthus trees about Philadelphia. 



Flow^ers in Egyptian Hieroglyphics. —Com" 

 modore Macauley, of the United States navy, 

 has recenti)' published a "Manual for the Use of 

 Students in Egyptology." He gives the ancient 

 signs, as found used in their inscriptions, the 

 modern Egyptian word for these signs, and the 

 English word which stands for them. 



It is extremely interesting to note that our 

 word "flower," in Egyptian "herer," before let- 

 ters to represent sounds were invented, was re- 

 presented in this ancient sign language, by the 

 Nelumbium or Lotus and the Rosebud. The 

 Lotus is represented by a full face view, with 

 fully expanded petals. The Rose is given as a 

 side view — as in a comparatively young bud. 

 Though Commodore Macauley does not say so — 

 rendering both simply as meaning "a flower" — 

 it may be that, as the two figures occur inde- 

 pendently, a full blown flower was intended 

 when the Lotus was used, and a mere "flower 

 bud" or unopened flower by the rose. 



Potatoes from Tomato Plants. — Mr. Barron, 

 of Chiswick.in a paper read recently before a 

 learned society in the Old World, says on the 

 authority of " Prof Beal, of Agricultural College, 

 of Lansing, Michiiian," that a potato scion set 

 into a tomato plant induced the latter to set 

 small tubers in the axils of its leaves, as are seen 

 sometimes on the tops of potatoes. The graft- 

 ing of an Artichoke plant into a Sunflower 

 caused the latter to form tubers underground. 

 We do not believe that any tomato ever put 

 forth tubers in the axils of the leaves as here 

 stated. To the best of our recollection Professor 

 Beal did not give this as fact in his lecture, but 

 simply reported that he had " heard so." 



The House Fly and Distribution of Poison 

 Germs. — Dr. Thomas Taylor, of Washington, read 

 a paper before one of the sections of the recent 

 meeting of the American Association at Mon- 

 treal, in which he suggests that the house fly 

 may be the carrier and distributor of germinal 

 virus, which we now know to be at the bottom 

 of many diseases. Dr. Leidy, President of the 

 Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 

 showed before that this is actually the case. Like 

 all useful things— for they are scavengers — the fly 

 has its bad traits. 



Herbarium of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia. — An extremely inter- 

 esting note on the Herbarium of the Academy 



