48fi 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 



VEGETABLE PATHOLOGY.— No. LXXXI. , 



339. Capsomanta (Multiplication of Pistils, <fcc.).— 

 Under this head I include those constitutional and 

 organic changes which affect the carpels and ovules. 

 These may t st either in a single branch or in every 

 part of a seedling ; but as every bud may be considered 

 in a certain sense as a distinct individual, and peculiari- 

 ties which take place in a single bud may often be pro- 

 pagated, there is no inconvenience in considering both 

 cases together as essentially constitutional. It is not 

 uncommon, for instance, in the Apricot to find blossoms 

 with more than one pistil, and in consequence twin fruit 

 occurs, and there is a variety of Peach in which such 

 fruit is const mt. A branch of a Plum is figured in 

 Card. Chron. (1852, p. 452) in which three or more 

 pistils are present, varying however in number in the 

 several flowers. As these were produced on a Mid- 

 summer shoot, there was no probability of the fruit 

 coming to perfection, and the flowers were accordingly 

 sacrificed with a view to ascertain their structure. 

 Other instances occur of the production of more than 

 the ordinary number of carpels, as in those leguminous 

 plants in which a single carpel is almost universal; and 

 again in Umbellifers, where the number of carpels is 

 as constantly two, a third is sometimes added ; and, 

 indeed, not un frequently in Heracleum sphondylium. 

 The variety of Wheat known under the name of Mummy 

 Wheat exhibits a multiplication of the spikes by means 

 of elongation of the axillary buds of the glumes, and 

 that in such perfect keeping with the rest of the plant, 

 that there is no deficiency, but on the contrary an in- 

 crease of produce. 



340. Cwrpels may be multiplied, not only in the same 

 plane, but in more planes than one, as in the Pome- 

 granate. Pears are not unfrequently distorted from the 

 addition of numerous carpels on the upper part of the 

 axis. Several instances are figured in Card. Chron., 

 1851, p. 723. Such a structure may obtain normally, 

 but in the curious conditions of Sweet William and Fox- 

 glove mentioned above, it accompanies other morbid 

 phenomena, the carpels which are produced from a 

 whorl higher up the axis being totally different in struc- 

 ture from that in which they are contained. We have, 

 for instance, central and axillary placentation in the 

 same plant ; and again we have free parietal placentse, 

 and axillary placentse, combining, in fact, the characters 

 of Fig worts and Gesneraceac in one and the same cap- 

 sule of a Foxglove, The only difference between these 

 cases and that which is normal in the Pomegranate, and 

 takes place occasionally in other Myrtads, consists in 

 the greater compactness of the fruit of the latter, in 



consequence of which the structure becomes a little 

 confused.* 



341. The ovules are subject to morbid changes no less 

 than the carpels themselves. They may revert to their 

 original form of leaves, or they may consist of a whorl 

 of leaves, and thus produce distinct carpels. In the Sweet 

 Wiliiam, Foxglove, and Carnation, to which we have so 

 often alluded, there is either the rudiment of a stigma, 

 or one to each carpel of the transformed ovules in a 

 very perfect condition, the placentation in the two 

 former cases being uniformly and decidedly parietal. 

 This peculiarity, moreover, is not confined to a single 

 flower in the case of the Carnation, but in the original 

 flower, as in many plants derived from cuttings, every 

 capsule is more or less affected, insomuch that it is 

 quite hopeless to look for seed. Ovules occur, also, on 

 transformed organs as stamens and peta!s. In the 

 Gourd mentioned above, they were produced abundantly 

 on the anthers instead of pollen, and in a double Barba- 



this 



kind, well mixed, and 

 sifted), on an efficient 

 if peat cannot be had, 



lias proved that a soil of 



chopped up with the spade (not 



drainage, suits it perfectly ; but 



then three-quarters loam and one- quarter leaf-mould 



and sand might answer. In both cases, place a layer of 



some of the most fibry and rough soil over the drainage, 



with a view to make the latter act perfectly and 



permanently. 



After potting, give a thorough watering, to settle the 

 soil about the roots, and place it in a smart bottom- 

 heat in a moist stove. When it shows symptoms of 

 breaking, if the plant is weakly or drawn, cut it down 

 to a prominent bud on the ripe wood, or in the case of 

 a stronger plant, bend it down, in order the better to 

 equalise the flow of the sap, and cause the buds at the 

 bases of the shoots to start simultaneously with those 

 at their tops. Judicious watering and occasional tying 

 will now be all that it will want, until it has filled the 

 pot with roots and requires a shift, which will probably 

 be some time in June ; for it must be remembered that 

 it should not be allowed to blossom the first year. The 

 point to be kept in view is, to have a good strong plant 

 furnished in autumn with well-ripened wood, from which 

 abundance of bright yellow flowers may be expected 

 the following season. 



About the beginning or middle of June, if all has gone 

 on well, it will be found to have filled its pots with fine 

 healthy roots, and should be shifted into an 11-inch pot, 

 using the same compost as before. After shifting, con- 

 tinue the generous growing treatment already recom- 

 mended, until the end of autumn is approached, when 

 water should be gradually withheld, and all the light 

 and air that is possible given it, to ripen the wood well, 

 an important point in the culture of all plants, but more 

 especially so in that of the Allamanda. Keep it all but 

 dry during the gloomy months of early winter, and about 

 the middle of February start it into growth. Prune the 

 unripe tops off the old wood ; and if a large and fine 

 specimen is desired shift it when it begins to break, and 

 plunge it again into bottom-heat. Train the branches 

 well out on a barrel-shaped trellis, which may consist of 

 seven or eight nice hazel rods, of sufficient length, placed 

 in the soil immediately inside the pot, fastened to a 

 hoop about their middle, and then to a smaller hoop at 

 their top. Bend the shoots of the plant round this, so 

 as to cover it regularly ; and when the young branches 

 have begun to grow freely, train the strongest of them 

 near the bottom of the trellis, so as to have your plant 

 regularly covered with flowers, which it will be by the 

 middle of July if the foregoing directions have been 

 carefully carried out. 



In the third and fourth years it will flower earlier 

 and better than in the second, and it will not require to 

 be shifted ; but it should be fed occasionally with clear 

 liquid manure water, to keep it healthy and vigorous, 

 without being over-luxuriant. By liquid manure I mean 

 Clear weak dung- water from the stable-yard. Alpha. 



does Lily (Amaryllis hippeastrum) figured in Lindley's 

 "Theory of Horticulture," they are produced on the 

 sides of certain doubtful threads representing either 

 petals or stanv ns. 



342. The component parts of the ovule when ad- 

 vancing nearer to maturity are not exempt from distor- 

 tion and change. The raphe, for instance, in the Melon 

 is sometimes immensely swollen, and the cotyledons at 

 the same time are so over-nourished that they burst 

 through the integuments though capable of affording a 

 considerable degree of resistance, f It is to some pecu- 

 liar diseased condition, too, that we must refer those i r * Al • i ^ ▲ * i- i_ - 

 cases in which the embryo germinates while yet within * foofc <* mor . e > the improved effect of which is most 

 the fruit, and not only are roots put out, a circumstance ™ m * rkabIe >. m fact . manv <> f the P lants (though very 



Home Correspondence. 



Mixed Hedges. — Is Beech the only plant you would 

 select for this purpose I Surely the evergreen Privet 

 is vastly superior, not only in appearance but in density ; 

 nothing can well be uglier than the dead, brown leaves 

 of Beech. It is a perpetual memento mori, from which 

 the eye would gladly seek relief in the refreshing ver- 

 dure of the Privet. As to whether a fence is better 

 mixed or unmixed, doctors differ. The rationale of the 

 matter I take to be this — where Whitethorn will 

 flourish per se 9 why mix anything with it ? Let well 

 alone ; but if you must have a mixture, let it be something 

 sightly like Privet, not ugly like Beech. The thickest 

 and best fences I have ever seen and grown heve been 

 of Privet and Whitethorn in about equal parts. 

 Samuel Taylor, Gloucester. 



The Cactus House, Kew Gardens. — I am a great 

 admirer of succulent plants, and as such often pay with 

 much pleasure a visit to the above place, which I pre- 

 sume I may say, without fear of contradiction, is quite 

 unrivalled in quality or extent. Last week I was much 

 struck with the altered appearance of the place ; the 

 plauts at the back of the house had been raised perhaps 



which I have myself witnessed, but the plumule in- 

 creases, mtkes its way through the integuments, and is 

 developed into a strong shoot, a circumstance which a 

 few years since caused a considerable degree of excite- 

 ment in Germany, though in reality not near so marvel- 

 lous as many vegetable phenomena with which we are 

 all familiar, M. /. B. 



^ALLAMANDA GRANDIFLORA. 

 When well grown and flowered this is one of the 

 handsomest of the Allamandas, and it is not very diffi- 

 cult to manage. Let us begin with a young plant in a 

 5-mch pot, bought in spring from the nursery. Such 

 a plant, it m good health, will in general be found to be 

 what is termed pot-bound. The first operation, there- 

 fore eoder such circumstances, will be to turn it out 

 of the pot, remove the crocks, and carefully to disen- 

 tangle the roots. If the latter are healthy, give rather 



S f ^?! "^ ftn 8inch Pot, using a mixture 

 of one-half trood fibry loam, one-quarter neat and on* 



quarts leaf-mould, wJt^tfleriS^f^ ^^ 



• See Lindley'g M Vegetable Kingdoi ' p. #57 mi«, wi^l 

 several other instances are mentioned or illast»ted ' where 



T I have observed this to be the case in th* M Jni nn -.* 

 double varieties of Balsams * ca P sale8 of wy 



familiar to the eye from year to year) one could hardly 

 believe to be the same under the new arrangement. I 

 have no doubt hundreds beside myself have been struck 

 with this manifest improvement, which I consider 

 reflects great praise on those who have planned and 

 carried it out ; and, as I heard a lady remark, this 

 house is now the * gem of the place." There is yet, 

 however, remaining one thing very objectionable, and 

 that is the Lycopodium edging— this might be removed, 

 and replaced with some of the common dwarf-growing 

 succulents, some of the greenhouse varieties of the 

 common " Stone-crop,'' or similar things, which would 

 require treatment nearer the Cactus than the Lycopo- 

 dium, and would harmonise better with the general 

 effect of the house. It is a fact too well known to 

 require any comment, that succulents will not harmonise 

 in appearance with any other kind of plants. I throw 

 this out as a suggestion which, if found practicable, I feel 

 assured will be carried into effect, as certainly it can be 

 said of this establishment (unlike most others belonging 

 to the nation) with truth, that the "road to improve- 

 ment is always open and free." N. Burgess, Hackney. 



New Rat Trap.— -After the lapse of something like a 

 quarter of a century, I felt not a little amused at the 

 re-appearance in your pages of an old sketch of mine, 

 headed jis above. Its history is briefly this. The merit 



of the invention 



it first apm*J 

 ThuiTS 



and ingenious friend the late Robert P*»l "7 1 - 

 in Norfolk, who had, as many b2 s l!?K 

 remember, a peculiar turn for this ^el^T *- 

 knackery ; delighting in nothing better Z« ^ 

 venting, in every possible and impossible *!"** 

 may be called the natural enemies of the U^Hl ^* 

 the flies in the Turnip field to the rats anS'> 

 homestead and rickyard. As a neighbour I had friz 

 opportunities of seeing his inventions ; such of2? 

 as pleased me I had his full consent to adopt - 

 others, what he called his "rattery," a plan o'f 

 subsequently made for my late lriend Mr Lo2? 

 whose " Encyclopaedia of Agriculture " it first i** 

 and afterwards in his " Gardeners' Magazine * 

 too, in the M Farmer's," but that I forget. T 

 new rat trap, of which you have made such honnii. 

 mention, and in whose praise, though in some d«n* 

 party concerned, I can from experience most c^* 

 tiously join. Samuel Taylor, Gloucester, July 16, 



Fruit of Rh ododendron javanicum.—l have this 

 ing detected Rhododendron javanicura in the a*rf 

 throwing off that extraordinary great-coat which I 4. 

 scribed to you on a former occasion, and I encfatt m 

 a pod in that condition. It is so sensitive to dw5 

 that it may come off and shrivel before it reach* j* 

 The ripening of the seed pod takes place a week«rfc 

 days afterwards — at least it did so two years ago— ol 

 the pod itself is so hygrometric that it will split 

 half an hour after being gathered in warm or kf 

 weather. When divested of this exterior coat in pi 

 resembles that of ordinary Rhododendrons. Oi 

 gathering the pod I see it shows signs of splitt'or ti 

 once ; generally the coat comes off some days pre- 

 viously. John Rogers, River Hill, July 9. [In this em 

 the shell of the seed pod (capsule) separates into tt» 

 plates — the outer leathery and deciduous, the iwr 

 hard, dry, and hygrometric ; the former is anabgooito 

 the two-valved rind of the Almond, &c. Soraethagrf 

 the same kind occurs in R. Edgworthi, and a preeUj 

 similar peculiarity is found in an unnamed Rhodofe 

 dron in our herbarium, collected by Griffith in Maliea 

 It is, moreover, to be observed that all Rhodod 

 capsules have the same great-coat ; the differenes « 

 that in some it is thick, in others thin, and that 

 throw it off and some do not.] 



Ineffectual Puddling. — I have had to contend fH 

 this difficulty for upwards of 15 years. My sntaB, 

 like that of your correspondent's, is gravel, the pod t 

 pool is from 2 to 3 feet deep, and lined with strongil» 

 clay li foot thick all over the bottom and np to 

 sides to the surface of the ground. In order to inott 

 firmness, I beat down upon the clay the thinnest if 

 stones I could fall in with, and laid the joints as dm 

 as possible, still the water sunk, say, about an ind i 

 day ; and the pond being supplied entirely from I 

 pump well, it became troublesome to keep it up. AI* 

 three years ago an ingenious tradesman proposed m 1 

 should make trial of burnt limestone, slacked wittia 

 water from the Firth of Forth here, and with pla* 

 prepared with sea water also. I laid it on abort* 

 inch thick above the flag-stones, and of late yean* 

 pond has retained the water much better. "J 8 *" 

 lay on the lime plaster in dry weather, and allot tm 

 remain as long as possible to firm and tomwMVJr 

 the hot lime and salt harden the plaster consideii^ 

 and when the pond is filled the fresh water mm 

 soften it greatly, and hence I now find a n^e pinjj 

 now and then keeps up the pond to the JeigKj* 

 quired. Thomas Millie, St. Clairtown, Kxrkaiai 

 1 have no doubt that the ineffectual pudding com?*" 

 of by « J. J." has arisen solely from the use of a pjj 

 clay, and not from the circumstance of the > * joug 

 gravel. I made a large tank here by pudd ling J JJJ 

 years ago, and it has never leaked a drop, DU ' ^ 

 we have seven feet deep of good brick day, i .^ 

 experience that it was unfit for P u « dI | n .S* m *ri 

 carted some very strong clay fr0 ™ ^ ^„ t f n w iih wa», 

 two miles hence, which I had well beaten up w ^ j 

 and then beaten in to the thickness ofl5 men J, ^ % 

 am convinced that it will hold ?'l"»J£ty 

 remains undisturbed. I may add tha J the itt Mjjjj 

 tank rests on sand and gravel. V. *•> ^ 



« J. J.'s ■» observation that, in the i^g, ^ 



his pool watertight, the clay was wel ^U^j * 

 indicate that it was not really V* d ™ a ' th or * 

 the term implies, is making a P udd f °'les to m*** 

 with water. It enables the smaller pai tici ^ 



themselves and settle under water^ong^ ^ 



;: 



ones, so as to form a compact watertig inte rTeu— .. 

 a pond or pool with clay, without ti-J * ^ 

 more water than is just enough to render ^ 

 plastic that it may be beaten, is not puddM. ^ 

 a dock at Chatham had been condemn* 1 ° ^ ^ 

 leakage, but by excavating at the baU ^ 



wallsf and filling np the space , wUh :< jt 

 into water, the late Sir S. Bentham rend 

 ally watertight In 1811 the sav, ng re*^, # 0- 

 mode of repairi,g the dock amounted the J^rf. 



A, the subsoil of - J. J-V P°° l » 5*VL' to ** K 



As the subsoil oi • u. «. » r~ „,)vi«able w °"*^gf 



coarse description, it would be adv. ^gn 



or leaves with the puddle, so as i : ^ i 



large vacuities ; this has been ucc «j / ^J 



the construction of the « Canal f» "^k^-f J! 



in other works. As regards the cm 



efl« rf * 



lower 



er works. As regarua .- - „ ol pu- 



part of it, a W«»S?£ g»i- -fi 



N 



the larger stones found among ^ 



»» 



lilt; liii^e* ch,wm»-» , middle k** ^i 



formed on the clay bottom, and a , pu .^ 

 As neither pure sand I nor pure djj rf ^ 

 water, soils containing * Jar S e * 



» 



it* 



tft 



