250 ■ 



THE GARDENERS' MONTHLY 



[August, 



as these; and these considerations give great en- 

 couragement to those who believe they may some- 

 day be able not merely to give good guesses as to 

 a belief that species and genera have been evolved 

 out of oiie another, but actually to show how the 

 species are made, and possibly make them to order. 

 Mr. Bull says this plant is a real beauty for the 

 cultivator. It is, he says, a noble and striking Or- 

 ontiad, imported from the United States of Colom- 

 bit^. The leaves have terete petioles, which are 

 slightly sheathing at the base. The leaf-blade is 

 three-lobed, deflexed at first, afterwards elevated, 

 the middle lobe lanceolate, and the two lateral 

 lobes semi-ovate, being most developed on their 

 exterior edge ; these lateral lobes have from three to 

 five longitudinal ribs, and the central one is pin- 

 nately veined, with a connecting veinlet running 

 about half an inch within the margin. The young 

 leaves have a bronzy tinge before taking on the 

 full green of the mature foliage. It is a very strik- 

 ing plant, and one which should be found in all 

 collections of choice novelties. This was one of 

 the new plants with which Mr. B. gained the first 

 prize at the International Horticultural Exhibition, 

 held at Ghent in 1878, and the first prize at the 

 Great Show of the Royal Horticultural Society, 

 held at Kensington in 1880. 



Favored Cli.m.\tes. — We often hear of the cold 

 inhospitable northern regions, and favored south- 

 ern cUmates, where Nature does everything, and 

 all man has to do is to lie on his back and let the 

 generous harvest drop into his mouth. But, read- 

 ing the Tropical Agriculturist, one of our ex- 

 changes from India, we find they are pestered be- 

 yond measure by all sorts of ills. The larva; of 

 the cockchafer, or as we know it here the "May- 

 beetle, feeds on the roots of the coffee to such an 

 extent, and the leaf fungus preys so alarmingly on 

 the foliage, that it takes labors like those of Her- 

 cules to get a successful coffee crojj. So with Cin- 

 chona, which, grown for quinine, we are told in 

 the United States, is such a grand success in Cey- 

 lon. The climate is good enough for it and it.grows, 

 but what with blights, and moulds and insects, the 

 cultivator often gets sick at heart. As for the in- 

 sects, as a last resort, they talk of introducing the 

 English sparrow. On this subject the controversy 

 waxeth warm. Some assert that these birds have 

 proved such an unmitigated nuisance that large re- 

 wards are offered for their destruction, while others 

 point to the United States, where, it is confidently 

 asserted, "heavy penalties have been enacted by 

 Legislatures and city governments for their protec- 



tion, as much as five dollars per bird bein^ the fine 

 on those who destroy them." 



These proceedings go to confirm a point we have 

 often made — that when it is desired to bolster up 

 any doubtful cause, it is much better to go to the 

 other end of the world or to ages dead and buried 

 long ago for arguments in support thereof, than to 

 what people can verify for themselves. 



Variation ok Plants. — The innate tendency 

 of plants to vary, irrespective of any external in- 

 fluences, and of which so much has been made 

 by those who look on this tendency to vary as 

 the primary law in the evolution of new species — 

 receives continual elucidation from new discover- 

 ers. A recent contribution is from the pen of 

 Mr. H. Veitch, of New Haven. He shows that 

 wheat is strictly a self-fertilizer — poUinization 

 being effected in the bud — and that it is impossible 

 for the pollen from one plant to reach the stigma 

 of another. Yet, as far as history goes back, 

 varieties of wheat continually appear, and new 

 varieties are being introduced by seedsmen unto 

 this day. These varieties are selected from the 

 crop in an ordinary wheat-field. The plants all 

 grow under the same coriditions, and are sur- 

 rounded by the same circumstances, yet these 

 variations occur under the influence of some 

 hidden law. These variations, once produced, 

 come under the laws of heredity, reproducing 

 themselves with tolerable exactness for a while, 

 but sending out here and there striking depar- 

 tures, which the cultivator selects and preserves 

 when they chance to profit him. — Indepe7ident. 



SCRAPS AND QUERIES. 



Biennial Flowering of Native Orchids. — 

 "J. M." writes: "Will you allow me to inquire of 

 the readers of the Monthly if any of them have 

 observed a tendency in our native orchids to bloom 

 profusely but every other year? Several years ago 

 I was desirous of obtaining a few flowering speci- 

 mens of Goodyera pubescens, and visited for the 

 purpose a place where the plants grew by the hun- 

 dred. I could not find a single plant flowering 

 that year. The present season, on a hke errand, I 

 went to where some one hundred plants of Cypri- 

 pedium acaule were growing. The half of the 

 number were large and vigorous, but there was not 

 one had flowered in the lot, though past their sea- 

 son. Can any one say if this is usual with orchids? 



