464 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 456. 



Fig. 62. A wire-worm. Larva of an 

 Elaterid, or click-beetle. — After Riley. 



girdled roots or stalks show how the injury has been accom- 

 plished. In some cases we may find the caterpillar inside 

 the stalk of grass, or even boring in a rather large root or 

 crown. 



In the order Coleoptera we have several species that are 

 troublesome on lawns and in grass land. First among them, 

 perhaps, may be considered the wire-worms. The term "wire- 

 worm " is popularly used to designate two very different kinds 

 of creatures, both of which may be found in grass land, but 

 which have entirely different habits and life histories. One 

 form of wire-worm is brown or blackish, from an inch to two 

 inches in length, almost cylindrical, with many segments, two 

 pairs of legs on each segment, and a habit of curling up when 

 disturbed. This is one of the myriapods (see fig. 61), and 



Fig. 61. A "wire-worm" belonging to the Myriapoda, Julus cceruleocinctus. 



these insects are very apt to be present where the land is very 

 rich, where there is much vegetable matter in the soil, and 

 where barnyard manure is frequently and heavily applied. 

 They are always associated with decay, and while they do 

 some injury on living plants, yet their usual food is dead and 

 decaying vegetable matter, including the dying roots of the 

 grass plants. Frequently they bite into soft, juicy tissue, and 

 sometimes induce a decay of which they afterward take 

 advantage. 



The other kind of wire-worm is yellow in color, also a 

 slender but somewhat flattened creature, with only six legs at 

 the anterior part of the body, and not often exceeding an inch 

 in length. It does not coil up when disturbed. This is the 

 larva of one of the click-beetles, or Elateridas (see fig. 62), and 



is exceedingly destructive. It 

 feeds on living-plant tissue and 

 almost entirely upon the roots 

 of plants. The life-period is a 

 variable one, but is rarely less 

 than two, and more frequently 

 three, years, giving the individual insect a greater power for 

 mischief than is usual, while it can readily be seen that from 

 year to year the number of specimens must increase, as insects 

 of different stages are found at the roots constantly. A lawn 

 badly infested by these insects will show a poor appearance 

 over the entire surface. There 

 will hardly be distinct brown 

 patches as with the preceding 

 insects, but there will be a gen- 

 eral poverty-stricken appear- 

 ance over the entire surface, 

 and the grass will get thin and 

 feeble, the result of the feed- 

 ing of numerous larvae among 

 the roots. When these crea- 

 tures become full-grown, 

 which is usually at or after 

 midsummer of the last year 

 of their larval life, they form 

 a little cell in the ground just 

 beneath the root mass, and 

 there change to a pupa and 

 soon after to a beetle, which, 

 however, does not become 

 fully matured until the spring 

 following. The beetles make 

 their appearance in May or 

 June, sometimes even in April 

 if the season is an early one, and there are a number of differ- 

 ent species involved. 



Click-beetles (see figs. 63 and 64), or Elateridas, are easily dis- 

 tinguished by their power of leaping or jerking themselves 

 upward placed upon their back. There is a peculiar structure 

 on the under side of the thoracic segments, by means of which 

 the insect is enabled to throw or snap itself into the air, and 

 from this it has received its names, click-beetle and snapping- 



beetle. The eggs are 

 laid before July, as a 

 rule, in the soil in 

 which the future lar- 

 va is to find its food- 

 supply. 



Fig. 64. Click-beetle, from side with legs removed, to )? C // 



show the prosternal spine. J • -"• OHlllfl. 



Fig. 63. A common click-beetle, Meelano- 

 tus communis — From Forbes' 111. Repts. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Aster infirmus. 



OF the three North American Asters belonging to the 

 section Doellingeria characterized by a manifestly 

 double pappus with clavellate thickening of some of the 

 bristles of the inner series, and which was formerly in- 

 cluded in the genus Diplopappus, the most familiar is A. 

 umbellatus, a tall plant with dense corymbs of white-rayed 

 flowers, conspicuous in our swamps late in summer and 

 autumn. Less well known is A. infirmus,* though described 

 by Gronovius in 1739 and figured by Plukenet as early as 

 1720. This figure apparently remains the only one pub- 

 lished, with the exception of that in Willdenow's Hortus 

 Berolinensis (as A. humilis), a work not generally accessi- 

 ble. For this reason it is hoped that our figure on page 

 465, made from a wild specimen growing in Lincoln, Mass- 

 achusetts, where it was found in abundance this season, 

 may prove of interest. 



Aster infirmus is very distinctly marked by its slender 

 zigzag stem, scattered, entire ovate or obovate leaves, ciliate 

 on the margin, and loosely corymbose heads with few 

 broad white rays. It ranges from Georgia and Tennessee 

 to eastern Massachusetts where it is a rare and local plant. 



The third species of the section, A. reticulatus, of the 

 Pine-barrens of South Carolina and Florida, we shall hope 

 to figure at some future time. 



Arnold Arboretum. C lL. r . 



Cultural Department. 

 Bud Variation of the Concord Grape. 



"\ VARIATION in the Concord Grape has been noticed for a 

 * number of years. In the Bushberg Catalogue mention is 

 made of a mammoth Concord that appeared twenty-five years 

 ago. "This," the catalogue says, "has now proven to be 

 identical with the Eaton, or, at least, if not the same Grape 

 and of the same origin, it is so much like the Eaton in all 

 characteristics, habits of growth, foliage, fruit, time of ripening 

 and quality that the two Grapes cannot be distinguished. As 

 our neighbor could tell us nothing about the origin of his 

 Grape, but claimed simply to have received it among a lot of 

 Concords, we have never disseminated it nor offered it for 

 sale." 



Since my attention was called to these mammoth Concords, 

 I find, on inquiring among vineyardists and others, that they 

 have been noticed from time to time in many localities, but 

 usually no explanation is given for their appearance. On a 

 recent visit to the vineyard of Mr. Walter F. Taber, of Pough- 

 keepsie, New York, the proprietor pointed out to me one of 

 these abnormal vines, which is certainly the result of bud 

 variation. Mr. Taber trains his vines on the two-arm Kniffen 

 system, renewing them from near the ground as soon as they 

 show the need ot it. The renewing is accomplished by allow- 

 ing a suitable bud to grow that is situated as near the ground 

 as possible. When the new vine has attained sufficient size, 

 the old one is cut out and the new one is put in its place. In 

 this manner the vine is renewed without seriously interfering 

 with the continuous yield of fruit. The vine in question was 

 planted in a Concord vineyard and bore Concord fruit up till 

 the time that it was renewed. The new bud grew more vigor- 

 ously than the surrounding vines, and when it came into bear- 

 ing it produced not Concord grapes, but black grapes that are 

 much larger in both bunch and berry. The quality of the fruit 

 is inferior to that of the Concord, the pulp being watery, rather 

 acid and flat to the taste. The skin is tender ahd cracks easily. 



Across the river at Middle Hope, Mr. W. D. Barns has a vine 

 that produces fruit that is nearly identical with that of the one 

 just mentioned. This vine was received by the owner in a lot 

 of Concord plants, and has always produced the same kind of 

 fruit. The bunches are very large, while the berries are char- 

 acterized by their large size, tender skin, watery, acid pulp and 

 insipid taste. Mr. Barns told me of another'instance where 

 one vine that was purchased with a lot of Concords produced 

 fruit similar to the one in his vineyard. This occurred in the 

 vineyard of Mrs. Rose, of Marlboro, New York. The owner 

 propagated from the vine, and now has a small vineyard of 

 the variety which is known under the local name of Jumbo. 



* Michaux, Fl. Bar. Am , vol. ii., 109. 



