104 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



[Revue Horticole — Paris, May, 1858. Journal D' Horticulture Pratique.] 



BEGONIACEiE— BEGONIAS. 



This family of flowers attracts much attention. 



About the middle of the 17th century, there was discovered in the Island 

 of St. Domingo, a plant which the Botanist, Plunier, dedicated to Gover- 

 nor Begon, the great Protector of Botanists. It was afterwards found in 

 Brazil, in Mexico, in Peru, in India, and even in China. They have 

 all received, naturally, the generic name Begon or Begoniacece. 



This genus may be distinguished by thick stalks, fleshy, articulated, 

 knotty. Leaves alternate, petiolate, rounded, oval or lanceolate, entire or 

 denticulate, or lobed, sometimes cordiform, (heart shape.) Almost always 

 with their sides unequal, &c., &c. They are generally treated as hothouse 

 plants. The fleshy and tuber rooted ones, keep from October to February. 

 They grow best in a soil made one-third heath soil, one-third rotten wood, 

 one-sixth of garden mould, and one-sixth of fine sand. The pots being well 

 drained, water them for a few days after they are potted. You must not 

 let drops of water touch their leaves, for it icill spot them ! 



Here follows a catalogue of about 40 varieties : Begonia Fuchsivides, 

 (like the Fuchsia,) grows and spreads on a trellis, ten to twelve feet, and 

 its numerous verniillion red flowers, pendent like the Fuchsia. Some have 

 bunches of white flowers veined with red, some have perfume, some resem- 

 ble roses, some are yellow, some have leaves red below, &c. 



INSECTS, WITH DRAWINGS, GREATLY MAGNIFIED. 



Pla?it Louse, proboscis for sap {four inches long.) — All the varieties of 

 this louse render the plants and trees sickly by exhausting their sap. The 

 Wood louse, or Aphis produces 100 young at a time, and that ten times a 

 year, and one egg which is deposited in the ground, to hatch next spring. 

 By calculation, one Wood louse produces in one year, five millions of de- 

 scendants, besides the egg for next year. There are about sixty species of 

 the Plant louse. 



Curcnlio has very numerous species — as Larva, (worms,) they devour 

 vegetable roots, leaves, &c. One of them, tlie Bruchus Pisi, gets into 

 peas and beans, one pierces bowers, one cuts off" young shoots of fruit trees, 

 the last three cut the leaves of the Pansics, (Pensees,) Polanthus, Beans, 

 Clover, Ranunculus. They hide at the roots of the plants in day time. 



[English Scientific Societies— Chemical Society, January 21, 1858.] 



SPONGIOLES OF PLANTS— THEIR ACTION. 



Dr. Daubeny read a communication he had received from Baron Liebig, 

 relative to the absorbent powers of soils. Baron Liebig maintains that 

 the spongioles of the plants, in obtaining their supply of saline matter do 

 not act by simple absorption, but exert a real chemical decomposing action 

 upon certain ill defined compounds which the saline matter formed with the 

 insoluble constituents of the soil. Dr. Daubeny also referred to the am- 

 moniacal emanations from volcanoes, and suggested that they might arise 



