"228 KOYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Flowering Plants. 



The Violet Sawfly (Eitiphi/his Canadensis, Kirby). — Sometimes the 

 growers of those garden favourites, pansies and violets, find that their 

 plants have been eaten during the night by some unknown enemy. By 

 looking beneath tlie surface of the soil, or under the lowest leaves, they 

 may find some bluish-black smooth false-caterpillars. These are the 

 larvas of the above named insect which often occurs upon members of 

 the Violet Family in gardens, and on one occasion did much harm in the 

 glass houses of a large florist in Toronto. (Rep. Exp. Farms, 1898, p. 

 169.) 



The Black Violet Aphis {Rhopalosiphum violœ, Perg.). — x\nother 

 insect pest which has caused much damage to violets during the past 

 year or so is the Black Violet Aphis, which made its first appearance in 

 Canada about 1897. Up to the present time this insect is not ^vide- 

 spreadj and, as it has been treated very successfully in the United States 

 with liydroc}ianic acid gas, a substance which although dangerous to 

 apply can be used quite satisfactorily by careful people, there is no 

 reason why it should be the cause of frequent losses. The ordinaiy 

 method of destroying insects in greenhouses by fumigation with tobacco 

 may also be used, or even dusting the plants with powdered tobacco. 



The Greenhouse Leaf-tyer (Phlijctœnia ferrugalis, Hbn.). — A late 

 addition to the injurious insects of Canada which, like the last named, 

 has so far only appeared in a single establishment, is this small moth, 

 the caterpillars of which feed upon the leaves of roses in greenhouses. 

 The damage done by the caterpillars of this insect were xery serious 

 about three years ago, necessitating the entire cleaning out of a large 

 houso of choice roses. The only reference in American literature to 

 injuries by this insect up to the present, which I have been able to find, 

 is in Bulletin No. 102 of the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, 

 where under the head of " The Celery Borer," the species is treated of 

 as an out-door pest, the larvae of which had been found boring into the 

 stems of celery. In the Canadian greenhouses referred to above, the 

 caterpillars are stated to feed and the moths to appear throughout the 

 winter. 



Fuller's Rose Beetle (Aramigus Fulleri, Horn). — At long intervals 

 florists suffer from this beetle which in Canada and the Eastern States 



, , only increases and becomes a serious cnomy under 



glass. (Kop. E.vp. Farms, 18S9, ]). 88.) 



Tho Black lih'stor-bcetlc (Epicauta Pennsylva- 

 nien. De G.). — Garden flowers of various kinds, but 

 F\ii. 10.— Fuller's ]):irtifularly of China and Gorman asters, as well as 

 Rose Beetle. pota'oes and leguminous phmls and shrub^, are some- 



