257 



CUNNINGHAMIA. 



CURCULIO. 



258 



calyx, naked inside, and the limb bilabiate; the upper lip erect, 

 flattish, usually emarginate ; lower lip spreading, trifid, with nearly 

 equal entire lobes, the middle lobe rather the largest and emargiuate. 

 The stamens 2, erect, exserted, without any rudiments of the upper 

 two ; filaments glabrous, toothless ; anthers 2-celled, cells parallel, or 

 at length divaricate. The style shortly bifid at the apes ; the lobes 

 nearly equal, subulate, minutely stigmatiferous at top ; the achenia 

 dry and smooth. The flowers small, white, or purplish. The species 

 are herbs, shrubs, or undershrubs. 



C. Mariana, native of Canada to Carolina, on dry mountains, is a 

 branched herb with short glabrous branches, but pubescent at the 

 nodes. The corolla is about twice as long as the calyx, and is pubes- 

 cent inside, and of a red colour. It is employed medicifially, 

 where it grows, in slight colds and fevers, with a view to excite 

 perspiration. 



C. microcephaly is also used medicinally in coughs and colds, in 

 Brazil, where it grows. It has a procumbent stem, with scarcely 

 pubescent branches ; the leaves petiolate, oblong or obovate, obtuse, 

 quite entire, or subsinuately serrated, narrowed at the base, glabrous, 

 and flat. The corolla is white ; the throat villous inside. 



There are several species of this genus, none of which are of any 

 known use except those above mentioned. 



CUNNINGHAMIA, a genus of Plants belonging to the natural 

 order Coniferce. C. Sinentu is an evergreen Chinese tree, formerly 

 called Pinut lanceolata. It has narrow oval lanceolate stiff pungent 

 leaves, which, when the plant is old enough, collect into cones, after 

 the manner of an Araucaria, The plant will live near London in the 

 open air, with a little protection in winter. 



CUNONIA'CK^E, Cunoniads, a small natural order of Polypetalous 

 Apocarpous Exogens, allied to Saxifragacert, with which they were 

 formerly united. They are trees or shrubs, inhabiting Southern 

 Africa, South America, and very sparingly the East Indies. In most 

 respects their flowers are constructed like those of Saxifragacea, but 

 the styles are more consolidated, and they have a dense spiked or 

 racemose inflorescence instead of a few loosely-arranged blossoms. 

 The leaves are opposite, and furnished with interpetiolar stipules, 

 and being pinnated, in most cases give the plants a peculiar aspect. 

 Little is known of thefa- properties, except that their bark is some- 

 times very astringent, and used for tanning purposes. There are 

 22 genera and 100 species. 



C. Weinmnnnin rubfscfnt, 

 1, a perfect flower ; 2, an ovary ; 3, a tianvcrc section of the same ; 4, a 

 ruit. 



Crr'KKSSJ.VITES, a genus of Fossil Plants from Sheppey, 



containing 13 species. (Bowerbank.) 



CU IT, KSS< }( ' K I N IT KS, a gmns of Crinnldm. (Or,l,lf, 

 CUPRESSUS, a genus of Plants belonging to the natural order 



XAT. HIST. DIV. vor.. ii. 



Coniferai, distinguished from the firs and pines by its leaves being 

 mere scales, its cones formed of a small number of peltate woody 

 bracts, and the seeds very small, angular, and several to each bract. 

 Botanists mention several species, but of these three only are suited 

 to the climate of Great Britain. 



C. iempervirens, the Common Upright Cypress, is a native of the 

 warmer parts of Europe, but has long since been transferred to 

 gardens for the sake of its deep evergreen branches and leaves, and 

 the gloomy air it imparts to the situations which it occupies. Its 

 timber is of great durability : it is probable that Gopher-Wood, which 

 some have referred to the cypress, was rather the timber of Thuja 

 articulala. It is not much cultivated in England, the climate being 

 too damp and cold for it in summer; otherwise it is sufficiently 

 capable of resisting the cold of winter. Its formal mode of growth 

 moreover is not to the taste of the people of this country. The 

 cypress was anciently, as well as at present, in south-eastern Europe, 

 chosen as a memorial of the dead ; and they are still the principal 

 ornaments of cemeteries in Greece and all over the Ottoman empire. 



C. horizonialit, the Spreading Cypress, is a far handsomer species, 

 partaking in all the excellent qualities of the last, being more hardy, 

 and becoming a beautiful object with its graceful spreading branches, 

 loaded, as they usually are, with large round cones. Miller has 

 rightly pointed out the difference between this and the last, but it is 

 nevertheless exceedingly uncommon in the collections of this country. 

 The Spreading Cypress of the nurseries is nothing but a very slight 

 variety of C. tempervirent. 



C. Lmitanica, the Cedar of Goa, differs from the two preceding in 

 its much ftver mode of growth, and in its leaves having a singularly 

 glaucous colour.. It is said to be of Indian origin, but has long since 

 been naturalised in Portugal, where about Cintra it acquires a large 

 size. In England it will only succeed well in the warm parts of the 

 southern coast. 



CUPULE, a kind of cup or involucre surrounding certain kinds of 

 fruit, and composed of bracts more or les grown together. In the 

 oak the cup of the acorn is the cupule ; in the hazel-nut it is the 

 husk ; in the beeoh and chestnut the prickly shell ; and in the horn- 

 beam the lobed bract. 



CUPULIFER^E. [CoBTLACE*.] 



CUPULITES. [ACALEPHJ!.] 



CURASSOW. [CKACIDJ:.] 



CURCU'LIO, a genus of Insects founded by Linnaeus for such 

 Tetramerous Coleoptei'a as have club-shaped antennae inserted on a 

 prolonged rostrum. In the twelfth edition of the ' Systema Naturae,' 

 95 species are enumerated. The progress of entomology has con- 

 verted the genus, as defined by its founder, into a family including 

 several thousand species, though the original name is retained for a 

 few South American beetles, of which CurciUio iplendidut is the type. 

 The popular name for these insects, whatever may be their scientific 

 designation, is the Weevil. The Weevils are favourites with the 

 entomologist on account of the sigularity and often beauty of their 

 forms and colours. The splendid Diamond Beetle, the wing-cases of 

 which furnish such gorgeous microscopic objects, is a member of the 

 tribe. Many of them are adorned with the most vivid metallic lustre, 

 and some in intensity and brightness of hue emulate gems, and have 

 been used for purposes of ornament. The family includes very 

 numerous genera and species, and they are distributed widely over 

 the world. 



The Weevils are interesting in another point of view. Many of 

 them are dangerous enemies to the agriculturist, destroying grain, 

 fruit, flowers, leaves, and stems, and from their numbers often perpe- 

 trating serious mischief. Their natural history therefore has been 

 made an object of special researches, in the hope of counteracting 

 their ravages. We shall here give some account of the noxious 

 species. 



1. Weevils attacking the nutritive organs of plants. Ehynchitcs 

 Betideti is a little blue or green beetle, glossed with metallic lustre, 

 which attacks the vine and the pear-tree. It is four lines in length, 

 one-third of which is occupied by its snout. Short; spines on the 

 thorax distinguish the male from the female. It attacks the leaves 

 of the plants mentioned, in order to construct its habitation of 

 them, and with a view to their furnishing food for its offspring. It 

 rolls up the leaves and deposits its eggs in the rolls, where they are 

 hatched, the nest afterwards supplying the larvie with food. As the 

 maggot grows, the rolled leaf and its stalk dry up, and at length fall 

 fco the ground on the first high wind, by which time the maggot is 

 fully grown and ready to leave its house, to bury itself in the ground 

 and wait for the spring, when it is to appear in a new garb as a 

 Weevil 



The process by which the roll is made is thus described by Kollar : 

 " When the female has selected a, suitable leaf, she cuts the petiole 

 with her rostrum almost half through, so that it hangs down, and 

 is more conveniently placed for future proceedings. She then begins 

 to roll the leaf together, generally alone, but sometimes assisted by 

 the male. While this operation is going forward, she also lays her 

 eggs, that is, she pierces the roll, lays an egg in the opening, and 

 pushes it in with her rostrum, in such a manner that it remains on 

 the inner side of the leaf. When she has introduced five or six eggn 

 in this manner, between the different folds, she rolls the remaining 



I 



