836 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE 



!T)kc 



were shortened in the process of reparation ? It 

 would he a highly interesting addition to the 

 evidence now collecting with reference to the Oak 

 used in our ancient buildings. 



New Plants. 



155. Cucurbita Perennis Asa Gray. 



I know nothing* about the vegetation ot Cucurbita 

 perennis in the north of France, but in the south there 

 is no plant with which I am acquainted that is more 

 .Jculated to cover a wall rapidly. For instance, I have 

 seen a single plant cover a surface of 16 square yards 

 in three months, Cucurbita perennis is superior to 

 other climbinir plants, in that it covers both sides of the 

 wall at the same time, whatever may be its length. The 

 following are the curious phenomena presented by its 

 vegetation. 



At the commencement of winter the stems of the 

 plant die, but its enormous roots remain alive in the 

 ground ; in the spring they begin t& grow and throw out 

 vigorous shoots from all sides, spreading themselves out 

 on the wall and forming a lame fan. Towards the 

 month of August these shoots become very long and 

 thin ; their leaves become smaller and more distant ; 

 their tendrils are little developed, and their flowers less 

 numerous. When the shoots have passed beyond the 

 top of the wall, their own weight carries them down on 

 each side. The mass of shoots forms a new and 

 pleasing covering which conceals the darker leaves 

 of the lower parts of the plant. But what is still 

 more important, these shoots descend vertically in a 

 more or l*-ss sloping direction, until they reach the 

 ground. They then run along its surface and carpet it 

 in the same way as they covered the wall. If a shoot 

 leaves the wall mid comes in contact with a hole or 

 uneven part, it penetrates it, and immediately turns out 

 again ; but roots are developed at the convex part of 

 the bend, strike into the ground, and thus form a 

 natural cutting, which may be detached from the 

 mother plant. This cutting is not formed on the surface 

 of the ground, even when the shoot is buried ; in order 

 to make it root it must be bent. Experiments which 

 I have made satisfy me as to this. I laid a glass tube, 

 closed at one end, horizontally before a shoot which 

 was running along the ground ; the shoot entered it, 

 reached the bottom, turned back twice at right angles, 

 and came out by the same aperture at which it entered. 

 Upon examining the bent part at the bottom of the 

 tube, I found that the roots were developed at the 

 convex part. If there had been soil at the bottom of 

 the tube, it is clear that the plant would have taken 

 root in it. 



I have many times placed pots of earth below the 

 shoots descending vertically. When they reached the 

 pot they ran along the earth, which I took care to keep 

 damp, and passed over it without taking root. But if 

 I had placed upon the pot a stone the size of my fist, 

 which would have forced the runner to bend back sharply 

 upon itself, it would have taken root very well. The 

 easiest way was to bend it back and fix it in the ground 

 by means of a piece of stick in the form of a V reversed. 

 The convex part th,en formed roots. I have often placed 

 various obstacles upon the ground before the shoots 

 such as tiles, bricks, and stones ; the rooting has always 

 taken place when the bend has been made abruptly in 

 contact with the earth, and never under any other 

 circumstances. 



All these facts show by what means this plant covers 

 so rapidly both sides of a wall, whatever its length may 

 be. Plant one a foot before a wall, or still better before 

 a trellis ; it will throw out its branches on all sides, 

 which will reach the top, then fall down on both sides 

 of the wall or trellis, come in contact with the soil, 

 penetrate all the uneven places at the foot of the waif 

 take root there, and form as many plants for the next 

 year. It is evident that the wall will be more quicklv 

 and regularly covered if the gardener takes the trouble 

 to peg down the shoots wherever he wishes a new plant 

 to be established. 



Cucurbita perennis deserves to be ranked amongst 

 ornamental plants. Its large cordate lanceolate leaves 

 have a beautiful velvety appearance ; its flowers, which 

 open in the morning, have a sweet fragrant odour, but 

 they fade quickly under the influence of the sun.' Its 

 fruit is a small round gourd, first green, then yellow 

 about the size of a large Monfreuil Peach. Ch. Martins 

 Prof, of Medicine at Montpellier ; in the Revue Horticole. 

 this very remarkable plant is not mentioned in the 

 last number of the Bon Jardinier,and seems to be little 

 known. It is described in the Plantce Liadheimeriana> 

 of the learned Dr. Asa Gray, and appears to be a 

 common Texan species growing in low places. It would 

 wm to be worth introducing for the purpose of forming 



**SE3£ p ~ tmt C0Tering to 0,d ™ u *> 



! 



To this genus belongs an insect which Sir W. J. 

 Hooker was kind enough to place in our hands at the 

 beginning of October last. It had been imported on 

 the leaves of a Palm from the Seychelles islands, and 

 had spread slightly over other plants in the same case. 

 Fortunately it was perceived on opening the case, and 

 was carefully destroyed. Had the plants, on the con- 

 trary, been placed without due caution in the stoves, 

 they would doubtless have quickly propagated, and a 

 new pest would have been added to our list of obnoxious 

 insects. Its size and general appearance will be per- 

 ceived in the figure of the fragment of a small Palm leaf 

 in the upper part of the accompanying woodcut. The 

 two lower figures represent magnified figures of the 

 insects, which are doubtless full-grown females, and 

 their appearance is more elegant than ordinary in this 

 tribe, the general colour of the body being fleshy pink 

 covered with a white powder, and with larger tufts of a 

 yellow secretion, having the appearance of closely 



tribes which infest every plant, from the Oak of the 

 forest to the tenderest annual, present more remarkable 

 peculiarities in their reproductive system than are to 

 be found in any other known animal. The thrips, like 

 the Forficula, is so singular in its structure as to be 

 equally unsettled in its classificational rank, having 

 recently been formed into a distinct order, whilst the 

 Coccidge, including the mealy bugs and scale insects, in 

 the remarkable transformations to which the males 

 alone are subjected, are amongst the most anomalous 

 of the insect tribes. The last-named family, placed by 

 Latreille at the end of the order Homoptera, has also 

 been raised into a separate order by some recent 

 writers, and contains two distinct groups of species 

 according to the condition of the adult females. In one 

 group, exemplified by the common scale insects 

 (Aspidio'us Nerii and Cacti, &c), and the true Cocci 

 or Cochineal insects, which are employed as dyes, the 

 females as they approach the full size gradually lose all 

 traces of their legs and antennae, and become fixed im- 

 moveably to the surface of the plants on which they 

 feed, their bodies shrivelling up and becoming a convex 

 covering to the mass of eggs which are deposited 

 beneath. The other group contains the mealy bug, 

 Pseudococcus Adonidum, &c, the Dorthesise, and some 

 other less known genera, in which the females, although 

 never acquiring wings, retain their limbs and also their 

 activity throughout their lives, although it is not often 

 that the latter is employed, as the insect is satis- 

 fied to remain in one place so long as that situa- 

 tion supplies it with food. 



The genus Dorthesia, named after M. Dorthez, a 

 French naturalist of the end of the last century, is one 

 of considerable interest. The males are elegant little two- 

 winded creatures, with a thick bundle of very long delicate 

 white straight filaments at the extremity of the body, 

 forming a thick tail ; the substance of these filaments 

 appears to be waxy secretion, with which so many of 

 these insects are more or less clothed, and of which au 

 example of excessive development occurs in the Chinese 

 Wax insect lately illustrated in our entomological series. 

 The females, on the contrary, are flat insects, nearly of 

 a rounded form, emitting thickened flakes of this waxy 

 material from the sides of the body, which give them 

 somewhat the appearance of tortoises in miniature. 

 Unacquainted with the males of this genus, Dr. Leach 

 formed the females into a separate genus, to which he 

 gave the name of Cionops. 



18 



VEGETABLE PATHOLOGY -Nn r 

 400. Sphrigosis, Accidental ano fw 



new).— Besides the forms of this HU? i° ~> ***• 

 our last Number, arising, L tr a^ knt" - 

 cases from constitutional peculiarities, ther ?S ln *** 

 of the malady common amongst cereals wh? ch J£? 

 from more palpable causes. It iannti^^j _ pP0c *4 



from 

 too nutr 



*ith*t 

 shoots 

 from 



~" v — " w *f ""«* »* iney occur where th 



not so evidently nutritious, and since the efWt J ^ ia 



animal 





manure, if v^chultz's views are correct 

 more in the stimulation of the organs of fructifioT^^ 

 on the shoots and foliage, it is clear that t h! i 

 must be considered as in a great measure * • ' 

 tional, and much more, when it is principallvT^ 

 ventmous buds which are influenced. l n t ac t th 

 causes are often so combined that it is imDo'JhU? 

 estimate them precisely. F^we to 



401. Excessive luxuriance in a crop amounting k 

 what is known under the name of rankness aria* ■ 

 many cases doubtless from the supply of \ )ai f / n 

 manure, from a more than ordinary profusion oTth 

 more common dressings, or of the usual constituents of 

 the soil, as in ground newly converted. Under su h 

 circumstances Wheat and Barley will exhibit a luxu 

 ance which may in the end deceive the hopes of tU 

 farmer, or from a dressing of sulphate of lj me tie 

 Clover layers mny afford a supply of fodder, *hick 

 answers the purpose of the farmer where his objVct m 

 to obtain abundance of foliage and stem, without 

 perfect development of seed. Such luxuriance mav 

 it is clear, be carried to a dangerous exten- 

 where, as in Peas and Beans, the production of 

 fruit is the main object. With thin sowing 

 there is however little danger from such luxuriant 

 and in such plants as Turnips, if the intervals between 

 the individuals are wide enough, where there is a luxu- 

 riant top there is generally a good root beneath. Pota- 

 toes may be stimulated by an abundant supply of guano 

 to produce large quantities of tubers ; but the salesman 

 who has once been unfortunate enough to buy them will 

 not readily receive a second supply from the same 

 quarter, as they are peculiarly liable to decay, and 

 sometimes perish within a few days of delivery, as hap- 

 pened a year or two since with an enormous crop in 

 Essex, of which I received an account from parties 

 personally cognisant of the facts, 



402. The effects of over manuring in pastures are 

 constantly visible in the coarse green patches which are 

 so obstinately refused by cattle. It is commonly said 

 that such Grass is refused because it is sour. There does 

 not, however, appear to be any foundation for this notion, 

 but there is no doubt something about it which does not 

 suit the palate of the cattle, and perhaps this may con- 

 sist in an excessive development of chlorophyll to the 

 diminution of other matters more grateful to their 

 palates. The imperfectly organised Grass which grows 

 under trees is equally distasteful, and probably the same 

 comparative absence of saccharine and other nutrition* 

 matter may render it unpalatable. It would be worth 

 inquiring what proportion the nutritious matter in 

 Clover raised under the influence of gypsum bears to 

 that in the shorter and less luxuriant produce of common 

 cultivation. 



403. There is, however, another cause of rankness in 

 vegetables which in most cases admits of no remedy. 

 In pastures this arises from the action of the larger 

 fungi, which exhaust the soil behind them while they 

 stimulate the vegetation which is immediately in front, 

 thus producing the appearance known under the name 

 of fairy rings. The manure of the decayed fungi is here 

 probably the cause of temporary luxuriance, tnouga 

 the formation of chlorophyll is generally ^mulatenny 

 the in troduction of mycelium into vegetable tissues. ^ 

 is the case with those parasitic fungi which attack cerea . 

 Plants of Wheat, for instance, which have been inoc • 

 lated with Bunt are distinguishable from TC tf ^J 

 growth, and a very vigorous appearance is equa )^ 

 forerunner of smut, rust, and mildew. In tfi e * ^ 

 of the Rice plant described bv Re under the nam 

 Carolo, the cause is probably the same, if we may J £ 

 from description alone, 1 1 is again notorious «"■» fl 

 Potato crops which are most ravaged by the m 

 exhibit a peculiar luxuriance before the appear* ^ 

 the parasitic Botrytis. This applies, of c0 ^ e vJ^t 

 those cases in which the mycelium is developed 



midst of the tissues. M. J. £. 





ENTOMOLOGY. 



Ir 



DORTHESIA 



is a 



. .. r . cunou s circumstance that several of those 

 tab*, of insects which are the greatest pests to rt»eh£ 

 ticnlturist, are also the greatest pnzzles to the sy sterna Sc 

 en omolog,st. 1 he earwig (Forficula) which* eat. the 

 etals of many flowers and the J 



leZlZT f emomo] ^^ by some authors be£ 

 regarded as formmg a distinct order, and by others i 



portion of the Orthoptera. The aphides, thise my^ 



pressed cotton wool arranged in several series along the 

 body on the upper side (as shown in the right-hand 

 figure), and in larger flakes arranged transversely (as 

 seen in the left-hand figure, representing the under side 

 of the body). The antennae are short and 12- jointed I 

 each having a small ocellus-like black eye near its base- 

 the legs are moderately short, and terminated by a 

 single claw. *. 



The mouth, as usnal, is placed between the base of 

 the fore legs, and contains several fine threads, which 

 the insect is able to protrude to a considerable length 

 thrust.ng them deeper and deeper into the substance of 

 the plants on which it subsists. I n addition to the 

 httle tufts of wooliy-like wax, the body is also rather 

 thickly clothed with long thin filament of Ts milar 

 material It is unfortunate that we could discove™ no 

 traces of the male insect, either in the pupa or perfect 

 s ates. We propose for the species the name o 

 Dortheaa SeycheUarwn. /. Q. Tf. e of 



SOUTH AUSTRALIAN GARDENING ^ 



As much disappointment and misery have aris ^^ 

 serious misrepresentations which have been v*< ' ^jy 

 about the Colonies of Australia, all of which diners ^ 

 in character, I venture to give your rea e ■ '^, 

 account of one of them. And first permit me ^ JJr 

 to some letters which you inserted last year ^ 

 M' Arthur, of Camden, near Sydney, RS- * be taken 

 favourable remarks, though all true, must no , |t , 



as a criterion of that place. He possea-es, J* ^ in 

 verv best and oldest garden in the whole coion} ' b . hi* 

 the* best sitnation. His Orange trees are WfJ ^ 

 fruits selected with great care and treated docer s. 

 judgment; he is the A 1 of wine-makers and o v - cultu r»l 

 The Colony of Victoria is a pastoral but not a ^^ 

 or horticultural country; I believe that •J bel * * Tl* 

 ho acre of good land within 5 miles of Me, E,j )ere j s *• 

 •Jrapes, too, are very inferior to ours. ^r* 



least possible regard paid now to garne" 1 B 





