180 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 



[Maii. 23, 



every uncultivated spot, enlivened by the cheerful hum of 

 busy flies, which hover over every sparkling leaf, when I 

 was attracted by the singular aspect of the foliage of a 

 sapling Oak, the basal half of the leaves alone appearing 

 to be alive (fig. 1), whilst at the extremity was suspended 

 a little sort of pod (fig. 2). On examining them atten- 

 tively, I found each leaf cut through to the midrib on either 

 side; the apical portion had been folded together, so that 

 the two upper surfaces were applied to each other, an egg 

 having been previously deposited near the apex, and the 

 whole had then been rolled up, beginning at the extremity, 

 by which process the broadest points of the leaves were 

 often left sticking out. This operation being performed 

 when the leaf has become soft and flaccid, from the divi- 

 sion of the vessels, it rolls up firmly, and as it dries it 

 becomes brown, hard, and very difficult to unrol, unless 

 it be relaxed by moisture ; and to expedite the extinction 

 of vitality in this portion of the leaf, the animal eats a 

 deep little hole in the midrib, about an eighth of an inch 

 from the cut margin, so as to interrupt entirely the supply 

 of sap beyond the point of the basal portion, which re- 

 mains alive and adheres, of course, to the branch or twig 



of the tree. 



Having collected about a dozen leaves thus transformed 

 into the nidus of an insect, I soon returned home to 

 commence unrolling one, and found within a quarter of 

 an inch of the apex an egg y about the size of a small pin's 

 head, smooth, translucent, yellow, and shining ; it was 

 nearly globular, and apparently loose, for it rolled off 

 immediately, and in this instance I had employed no mois- 

 ture in the unrolling which could relax the gum, by which 

 eggs are generally attached. The leaves had, no doubt, 

 been recently rolled up, for upon some of them I saw the 

 Coral-red Weevils, which were very conspicuous, con- 

 trasted with the rich green foliage on which they were 

 resting, and relieved by their jet-black legs. As this is 

 nearly allied to a similar insect which I have bred from 

 the Hazel, it will be advisable to describe the species be- 

 fore us, which Linnzeus named 



Attelalus curculionoides (fig. 3). — It is intensely black 

 and shining ; the thorax and elytra are bright red ; the 

 head is oval, with a small but prominent eye on each side ; 

 the nose is elongated, and forms a short punctate rostrum, 

 a little dilated at the extremity, which is furnished with 

 two mandibles, minute palpi, &c. ; towards the base of this 

 rostrum is a little tubercle, on each side of which are in- 

 serted the antenna? ; they are longer than the head, straight, 

 and 11-jointed, tie two basal joints being a little shorter 

 than the six following, the three apical ones forming a 

 slender elongated club ; the thorax is semi-ovate, and 

 minutely punctured ; the elytra are nearly twice as broad, 

 very short, and rounded at the apex, indistinctly punc- 

 tured, with nine punctured stride on each, the suturai one 

 short ; the legs are long, the anterior appearing the long- 

 est ; the thighs are stout, the tibiae slender, a little curved, 

 serrated, and bristly internally, with two small claws at 

 the apex ; tarsi longish and 4-jointed, two basal joints 

 obtrigonate ; 1st, the longest ; 3d, bilobed and cushioned 

 beneath ; 4th, slender, clavate, furnished with two small 



but strong claws.* 



Having seen many other sorts of trees similarly affected, 

 I shall return to this subject as soon as I have ascertained 

 the various species which are the authors of the work ; 

 and I doubt not they belong to the 'genera Rhynchites, 

 Deporaus, and Apoderus.-f- The present species, how- 

 ever, will supply abundant employment to any one who 

 has leisure to study its economy — for I saw nothing of the 

 operation — which would be highly interesting. The mouth, 

 as above stated, is at the extremity of the rostrum, and 

 being furnished with jaws, it, no doubt, first cuts the leaf 

 transversely, and afcerwards the egg is deposited ; from 

 this we may infer, that the female is the skilful operator; 

 but may not the male assist her in rolling up the leaf? 

 which, it must be admitted, is a very curious piece of 

 workmanship for so small an animal to execute. The natu- 

 ral size is exhibited by the curved line at fig. 4. The 

 maggot of another species I have found in its leafy case, 

 and although I have not discovered the pupa inclosed, it 

 is certain that the transformation takes place where the 

 larva is nourished, from my having witnessed the fresh- 

 born Attelabas emerging from its cartridge-like cell. — 

 jRuricoIa. 



i 



FAMILIAR BOTANY. 

 Morphology, No. "VIII. 



- ■ (Continued from page 165.) 



" Ohne studium derEntwickelungsgeschichte g\cbt es 

 keine Wissenschaft der Botanik."— Schlbide.-v . 



Our first two steps have carried us over the threshold 

 of Morphology, and have shown that in the first place all 

 the kinds of matter known in the vegetable kingdom are 

 little transformations of an extremely small number of 

 physical elements ; and in the second, that every herb, 



* For dissectiois, *c., vide Curtis'* Brit. Ent. pi. 7'0. 



t Curtis'* Guid?, Gen. 385, 38*, and 388. 



grass, or tree, i* built up with one organic element only, 

 differently fashioned by plastic force. As hydrogen, 

 oxygen, and carbon are the foundation of all the tissue of 

 vegetation, so is the cell, first-born and simple, the parent 

 of every other, even the most apparently complicated and 

 dissimilar form of that tissue ; so that the succulency of 

 plants, the toughness of timber, and the elastic springs 

 that lie hidden within the veins of the leaf are all derived 

 from one common state, through various transformations. 

 How wonderful and admirable is this simplicity ! how 

 much more consistent with our finite notions of the 

 power and wisdom of God, than to suppose that a hun- 

 dred different things are to be made in the first instance, 

 and then put together alter the fashion of man ! How 

 beautifully, let us add, is this marvellous plan adapted to 

 the nature of the bodies in which it is worked out, and 

 how inconceivable is it, by any one really acquainted with 

 the true nature of created beings, that any other plan 

 should have been adopted, or in fact that they could be 



fashioned in any other way. 



Let us now direct our attention to the manner in which 

 the tissue (or organic elements as distinguished from the 

 chemical or physical) are themselves brought together 

 when a plant is to be generated. The way in which the 

 common Yew forms its embryo within the young seed 

 may be taken as a beautiful example. (See a curious 

 paper by Mirbel and Spach, in the Annales des Sciences 

 for Nov. 1843). In this plant, as in all others, the young 

 seed is in its earliest condition a mere bag of mucilage, 

 containing rudiments of cells which gradually arrange 

 themselves in a regular and somewhat honeycombed 

 manner. After a time the interior is acted upon by the 

 point of a pollen-tube, which is itself a cell drawn out into 

 a long and even microscopically minute thread. Then 

 begins an active change among the cells ; from a and 6, 

 fig. 1, which are primitive cells of different kinds, extend 

 others in the form of tubes, which pass irregularly into 

 the cavity of the young seed, and there ceasing to lengthen, 

 the next formed cells reassume their first condition, as at 

 c. We must pay particular attention to the point c ; the 

 tubes themselves are but suspenders of that point, and 

 undergo no very important change after they have once 

 acquired their natural length ; they become more nume- 

 rous, and more solid, as at fig. 2 ; or they separate as at 

 fig. 3 and 4, or they gradually become absorbed and dis- 

 appear, as at fig. 5 ; all these alterations being consequent 

 upon their growing older, and ceasing to be of use to the 

 point c. 





and 4th, A supply of external air (when necessary) with- 

 out producing a cold draft. 



Tiie method by which the first of these is accompliiW 

 will be understood by referring to the section in which « 

 is the flow-pipe, b b b the return-pipes in the chamber A 

 It is evident that, as the air in the chamber becomei 

 heated, it will escape upwards by the opening c, and the 

 cold air from the passage (B) will rush in to supply its 

 place ; but the ascending current of heated air coming in 

 contact with the glass is cooled, descends, and, entering the 

 passage (B), passes into the chamber (A), where it i 3 

 again heated ; and thus a constant circulation is produced 

 In order to obtain the second object, I have to some extent 

 combined the tank and pipe systems. The flow-pipe a is 

 placed about half its diameter into the channel (C) 

 which, when filled with water (or so far as is necessary) 

 gives off a vapour exactly proportionable to the heat of 

 the pipe and pit. 



Now let us watch the changes in that point. At fig. 1 

 it is a little heap of cells ; at fig. 2, it is older, and has 

 become rather larger, but still is not materially altered; 

 at fig. 3, it is becoming far more compact, and has as- 

 sumed the appearance of a short cylinder of cells (part 

 only of which are shown in this and the following 

 sketches) ; at fig. 4, it has become some weeks older, is 

 still larger, begins to separate from its suspender ; and 

 at fig. 5, when nearly perfect, it divides into two lobes 

 and contracts at its base, possessing scarcely any con- 

 nexion with the suspender, which has become useless, be- 

 cause the original point c, to nourish which the sus- 

 pender was wanted, has advanced from a few cells, with 

 scarcely a fixed form, through various intermediate 

 changes, to the condition of an independent embryo plant, 

 with two lobes or cotyledons which are rudimentary leaves, 

 and a solid mass which represents the future stem and 

 root. It is still, however, merely composed of cells, and 

 in that respect has scarcely changed from what it was at 

 the first hour of its birth. 



Here we have a young plant in its embryo state indeed, 

 but perfectly organised, formed by the gradual addition of 

 cell upon cell, till it has gained its destined form. And 

 out of these simple materials all the future fabric of the 

 Yew-tree is to be produced. — R. E. 



PLAN OF PINE AND MELON PITS AT 



WORSLEY GARDENS. 



The objects I wished to accomplish in erecting these 



were— -1st. A circulation of air without loss of heat ; 2d. 



A supply of moisture at command, proportionable to the 



temperature ; 3d. A desirable amount of bottom-heat ; 



» t 



The third requisition is produced by the surrounding 

 atmosphere and heating materials. The fourth is accom- 

 plished simply by lowering the upper sash ; the cold air 

 thus entering at the top only, falls directly into the pas- 

 sage (B), and passes through the hot chamber before 

 coming in contact with the plants. In order to test the 

 circulation, I fixed a piece of paper near the front of the 

 pit, and found the current to be so strong as to bend, it 

 backwards and give it a tremulous motion. When the 

 heat in the chamber is 95 p , in the open space over the bed 

 it is 71°, in the bottom of the passage only 60°, and ia 

 the mould in the bed it is 80°. The amount of vapour is 

 regulated with the greatest facility, even from the smallest 

 quantity to the greatest density. In one division of the 

 Melon-pits, at present employed as a propagating house, 

 the cuttings have for some time past been covered with a 

 fine dew, and yet not one of them has been injured by 

 damp. This I can only account for by the air around 

 them being kept in cons tant motion. — J ohn Mitchell. 



Home Correspondence. 



Functional Disease.— In the 10th Number of the Gar- 

 deners' Chronicle the possible existence of functional dis- 

 ease, apart from structural derangement in organised 

 bodies, is maintained by a correspondent, who, ia 

 support of his position, compares the working of an ani- 

 mate organ to the operations of an inanimate engine, and 

 asserts that because a want of due adaptation of the mov- 

 ing power of the latter to the work to be done is simply a 

 functional derangement, therefore a deficient supply of 

 moving power, whether derivable from nerves or blood- 

 vessels, to the animate organ, causes also a purely func- 

 tional disease. Does not a very small amount of consi- 

 deration make it evident that this illustration is peculiarly 

 unapt to the purpose for which it is professed that it is 

 designed, and far more likely to mislead than to enlighten 

 those readers who do not chance to be very well ac- 

 quainted with the physiological and pathological workings 

 of their animal machines ? It appears to us that the cause 

 of movement in all inorganic machines (for such we pre- 

 sume your correspondent to mean when he writes ot in- 

 animate), is simply a,nd solely mechanical force, the 

 operation of the physical properties of matter, whether 

 elasticity or friction, or gravitation, upon matter e ndo *' ea 

 only with the like physical properties, although mouldea 

 into some peculiar form ; in this case function springs out 

 of rest. It would be of little usejhat the particles ° f . stea ™ 

 were endowed with elasticity and expansibility, tf J n - 

 piston-plate had not also impenetrability and the moving 

 parts inertia; and those very properties especially p inUl " 

 pose the material of the engine to take upon itselt stru - 

 tural change; so that its "diseases" and " derang _e- 

 ments" must be solely from some mal-application ot in 

 moving power. - But surely this is not the^ condition 

 present in any animate " machine :" the moving cause 

 there is continued change. The vital blood and nervous 

 influence do not come to the animal organ as the sie 

 to the high-pressure cylinder, or the moving stream wu 

 wheel. They furnish to the living organism the maiei 

 by which structural changes are immediately im P r " . 

 upon its constitution— changes upon which its very 

 ence as a portion of vital organisation hangs, in? \ 

 fection of its intimate constitution requires the conn 

 operation of waste and repair; and consequently, u 

 your correspondent Calls the supply of the moving po 

 -that is, blood and nervous influence-be *ithhd J ' ^ 

 immediate consequence is the presence of * truc ™ r it is 

 ease. That there shall be no structural derangement 

 required that that structure shall be continually ana 

 stantly renewed-that the affinities of the corrodmg 

 oxygen conveyed by the blood shall seize upon the p_^ 

 ducts of incipient decay, and remove them y^^rms- 

 tissues, where their continued presence must oe l °J eff 

 The happy father of a family who eats a hearcy _ 

 and hears of his collegiate sou's death imuiediaie „ 









