April 33, 1874. J 



JOURNAL OF HOBTIOULTURE AND COTTAGK GARDENER. 



327 



never came out so fully as tbcy did iu 1872. I attributed tbia 

 partly to the cold summer and partly to a frost iu June, just 

 after they were bedded-out. I have been propagating all 

 spring with the view of using it largely again, but find that 

 not only the old plants from which I was taking the cuttings, 

 but a great many of the young ones have gone off, showing 

 the same withering of some of the leaves. I find that it is 

 attacked by a rust which envelopes the leafstalks and makes 

 the plant flag and die, just like the Potato disease. Although 

 I Lave a large stock of healthy-looking cuttings, I %-ery much 

 doubt whether it is wise to depend on them, and am propagat- 

 ing the Imperial Blue Perfection, which grows taller, but has 

 not yet shown this disease. Have others met with the same 

 disappointment '!— Chaeles W. Hamilton, Co. Uleaih, Ireland. 



CEPHALOTUS FOLLICULARIS. 



This very rare plant is thus noticed by Sir W. Ilooker: — 

 For our first knowledge of this rare and highly curious plant, 

 having the ascidia or appendages of the famous Nepenthes, 

 but belonging to the natural order Rosacea!, wo are indebted 

 to JI. Labillardir re, who discovered it iu " Leuwin's Land," 

 and figured and described it in his " Specimen of the Plants 

 of New Holland." Mr. Brown during his voyage with Capt. 

 Flmders detected it on nearly the same line of coast — namely, 

 " in the neighbourhood of King George's Sound, especially 

 near the shores of Princess Royal Harbour, in 35° S. lat. and 

 118'^ E. long., beginning to flower about the end of Decem- 

 ber." From specimens there gathered the species has been 

 illustrated by that profound botanist, so as, aided by the 

 pencil of Mr. Bauer, to leave nothing to be wished relative to 

 its structure, save what might be obtained from a knowledge 

 of the seed, which is still a desideratum. 



Capt. King brought over living plants of Cephalotus to the 

 Royal Gardens of Kew in 18'2i), which flowered in August, 1827. 



The root is perennial, somewhat fusiform, the upper part 

 dividing, as it were, into two or three short stems, which bear 

 a cluster of elliptical, lanceolate, petiolated, entire, thiokish, 

 nerveless, purplish leaves ; and amongst these, but principally 

 occuping the circumference, are several beautiful and highly 

 curious pitcher-shaped appendages or operculated ascidia, at- 

 tached by rather stout petioles where the lid unites with the 

 margin of the ascidium. Their form is ovate or somewhat 

 slipper-shaped, between foliaceous and membranaceous, green 

 tinged with purple, furnished with two lateral oblique wings 

 and one centnil one, the latter remarkably dilated at the mar- 

 gin, and all beautifully fringed with hairs. The inside, which 

 contains a watery fluid and entraps many insects, especially 

 ants, is clouded with dark purple. The mouth is contracted, 

 horseshoe-shaped, annulated and crested with several deep, 

 sharp, vertical aunuli, of a dark purple colour, smallest near 

 the base of the lid; three of them, which are opposite the 

 wings, larger than the adjoining ones ; all of them forming a 

 sickle-shaped point within the mouth. Lid plano-convex, 

 green without and a little hairy, within clouded with purple, 

 marked with broad veins which are somewhat dichotomous, 

 the margin scalloped ; — at first it closes the mouth of the 

 ascidium, and afterwards becomes nearly erect. Scape 1 to 

 nearly 2 feet high, erect, terete, downy, bearing a compound 

 spicate raceme of white flowers at the extremity. 



It was cultivated by Mr. Corbett, gardener to the late Sir 

 WilUam Molesworth, at Pencarrow, in Cornwall, who thus 

 describes his adventures with it to the Royal Horticultural 

 Society. 



" We have a large rockwork at this place ; it faces the plea- 

 sure grounds. There is a large recess in this rockwork, where 

 we have a flight of steps winding from the bottom to the top ; 

 about half way up these steps a bog or swamp was made, and 

 in this bog we grow our Cephalotus. It is sheltered from the 

 north, east, and south by granite rocks weighing from half a 

 hundredweight to several tons. There are shrubs and different 

 trees growing on and about the rock, which help in summer to 

 shade part of the sun's rays from it. The bog extends nearly 

 on a level ; the shape of it is rather irregular ; its average 

 diameter is about feet. Above the rock, and some distance 

 from it eastward, there is a reservoir, from which the fountain 

 in the centre of the flower garden is suppUed by a large leaden 

 pipe. As the place where we can turn the water off or on to the 

 fountain is contiguous to the bog, where there is a small pipe 

 attached to the large one, there we have another stoppage to 

 the small pipe; it extends partly round the bog. There are 

 small perforated boles all round it as far as it goes : from this 



wo can turn on little or much water to the bog, just as we think 

 it requisite. At the commencement of making this bog there 

 was rather a low place across the bottom, and as the under- 

 ground was very porous, I put a layer of wet clay all over it ; 

 the next covering was a mixture of turfy peat, and a little very 

 much decayed leaf mould ; and on the top of that was a layer 

 of sphagnum, with some of its decayed roots, and some of its 

 natural soil that was under tlio roots. The surface of this 

 composition was not aU kept equaUy wet. 





■4%^'' 



Cephalotus fuUicularis. 



" The first thing that I planted in this bog was Sarracenia 

 puiijurea, which was about four years ago. It was a very 

 small plant at that time, but it has grown very much, and is 

 still doing very well, and it had nine flowers on it at one time 

 last summer. I put a hand-glass over it to protect it in winter. 

 Occasionally we put other materials over it to keep out the 

 frost. The spring following I planted the Cephalotus under 

 the same hand-glass, and there it remained doing very well, 

 and treated in the same manner as the Sarracenia, until 

 last April, when, to my surprise and regret, our poor little 

 Cephalotus was rooted-out of the mossy ground by some 

 mouse or large snail, and was to all appearance dead. The 

 roots were all dried-up, but I fancied there was a little life in 

 the stem ; I brought it into my cottage, and laid it on some 

 damp sphagnum. I then went up into one of the woods and 

 found a rotten stump of an old tree ; I cut off from it what I 

 thought suited my purpose. There were some chasms in it, 

 and it had living moss growing in it, and some perfectly rotten 

 wood. I next put into one of these holes a little fine and 

 sandy peat, a few knobs of rotten wood, and some very much 

 decayed leaf mould, and also a little sphagnum. I then planted 

 my poor, withered, little plant in this mixed holeful of living 

 and decayed matter, and I sunk this old stump in the middle 

 of the bog up to nearly the level of the rim of this hole, where 

 the percolating water gently moved past, and pressed probably 

 in a small degree through the lower fittings of the hole. I 

 afterwards put a small bell-glass over the little plant ; but the 

 edge of the hole being rather uneven, the glass was not air- 

 tight. Over this I put a square iron hand-glass : it being iu 

 two parts, the air got in a little between the top and bottom ; 

 and in the middle of hot sunny days I have this partly shaded 

 with a piece of old mat. In this situation no mice or snails 

 are likely to be enabled to invade it. 



" In about a fortnight after, I was delighted to find my little 

 favourite returning again to the evidence of vitahty, and now 

 I never saw it in such a vigorous growing state. At first it 

 threw-up healthy plain leaves, and soon after it had eight or 



