1900 SUPPLEMENT—RECENT INTRODUCTIONS, &C. 59 
Ants—continued. 
made to the fact that there are three different individuals 
to be met with in colonies of these social insects—males, 
females, and workers. Primarily the object of the first 
two is the perpetuation of their kind; while that of the 
last is to act not only as food-foragers for the larve, but 
also as nurses to them and to the pupx. The larve 
are absolutely helpless, and were it not for the good offices 
of the workers they would perish soon after emergence 
from the minute eggs. Here it may be as well to state 
that the so-called Ants’ eggs of commerce are nothing more 
nor less than the pup of certain species, which make for 
themselves a silken cocoon. It is these which one sees 
yery carefully carried about when a colony is disturbed. 
The larve are whitish, footless maggots, and, as above 
stated, they have to be fed and moved about by the workers. 
In the pupal state the creatures have still to be looked 
after by the workers, even to the extent of being helped 
out of the skins in which they passed that portion of 
their life-cycle. In many other ways the workers render 
help, until the newly-emerged insects are generally familiar 
with the life of the colony. Unlike Social Bees and Wasps, 
Ants elaborate no cells for the reception of their larvae. 
Ants in the garden are readily combatted by per- 
sistently employing one or other of the remedies suggested 
in Vol. I., p. 89. Those, however, inhabiting our plant- 
houses, and with which an interchange of commerce has 
presented us, are not so readily dislodged. The fact is, 
heat is absolutely necessary for their well being at certain 
seasons of the year in our changeable climate; hence the 
reason of their affecting warm greenhouses, &c. Here they 
destroy the vital parts of flowers, causing them to die away 
prematurely. 
To exterminate them trapping must be resorted to, 
and that at the opportune moment. The workers, or 
Fic. 51. ANTROPHYUM PLANTAGINEUM. 
Ants—continued. 
rather some few of them, will be in evidence all the year, 
but the time to set the traps is in ‘spring, when the young 
brood is hatched and food is absolutely necessary for 
their up-bringing. Then it is that the workers will be 
found in the greatest numbers industriously foraging for 
food for their charges. Now is the time for the traps. 
These should consist of old pieces of sponge, which 
should be dipped into a syrupy liquid and laid about 
their haunts. The sponges must be taken up periodically 
and plunged into boiling water. Care must be taken to 
wash out of them the dead bodies, and then they must 
again be set. In time all the workers will have been 
attracted, and will perish. The larve have still to be 
catered for, and the other members of the colony will 
have to venture forth in order to save the larve from 
perishing, only, however, to share the fate of their 
relatives. And in the end the whole colony will have 
succumbed if the trapping is persisted in. Large bones 
containing a little meat may also be placed in the haunts 
of the insects, which should be brushed off into boiling 
water. 
Some of the Wood-Ants are very destructive to timber. 
Their method is to enter the trees through some kind 
of wound, and when once inside they tunnel in all 
directions, and in the end the trees rot and die. By 
way of an Ant-destroyer the Ballikinrain may be recom- 
mended. 
ANUBIAS (name not explained by its author). Orp. 
Aroidew. A small genus (three or four species) of stove, 
evergreen perennials, with a short stem, natives of 
Western tropical Africa. Flowers monecious, on an 
inappendiculate, stalked spadix; spathe green, thick, 
convolute below, accrescent and persistent, but the blade 
deciduous; peduncle elongated. Leaves lanceolate, acute 
or sagittate-cordate at base; petioles elongated, long- 
sheathing. Only one species has been introduced. For 
culture, see Alocasia (to which this genus is closely 
allied). 
A. heterophylla (variable-leaved), fl. small. 7. about lft. long, 
3in. broad, bright green, blotched with dull yellow, 8in. to 12in. 
long, 4in. to 6in. broad; petioles 12in. to 16in. long. Congo, 
AOPLA. Included under Herminium (which see). 
APALANTHE. A synonym of Elodea (which see). 
APARGIA. A synonym of Leontodon (which see). 
APATURIA. Included under Pachystoma (which 
see). 
APEIBA. Syn. Aubletia (of Schreber). 
includes five species, all tropical American. 
APERA (from aperos, undivided; alluding to the 
flower-glume, which is entire). Syn. Anemagrostis. ORp. 
Graminexe. A small genus (two species) of hardy, annual, 
rather tall Grasses, natives of Europe and Western Asia, 
Spikelets one-flowered, small, loosely paniculate; glumes 
three, the two lower ones empty; panicle terminal, very 
elegant, ample, diffuse or contracted, with numerous fili- 
form branchlets. Leaves narrow, flat. For culture, see 
Agrostis. 
A. arundinacea (Arundo-like). 
dinacea. 
A. Spica-venti. The correct name of Agrostis Spica-venti. 
APHZ:REMA (name not explained by its author), 
Orp. Samydacez. A monotypic genus. The species is 
a small, erect, stove shrub or under-shrub, requiring 
similar culture to Rivina (which see). 
A. spicata (spicate). (#. golden-yellow, small, in solitary, 
terminal, slender, erect racemes; stamens eight, twelve, or six- 
teen, perigynous. J. opposite, 2in. to din. long, shortly petiolate, 
ovate-cordate, obtusely acuminate, crenate-serrate, with six to 
eight pairs of deeply-impressed nerves. South Brazil, 1896. 
(B. M. 7398.) 
This genus 
A synonym of Stipa arun- 
