76 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 260. 



followed by clusters of brilliant red berry-like fruit, which 

 in September and October enliven the forests of Hokkaido, 

 where this plant is extremely common. Schizandra Chi- 

 nensis is now well established in our gardens, flowering 

 freely every year, but in the neighborhood of Boston has 

 not yet ripened its fruit. 



The second species, Schizandra nigra, is much less com- 

 mon in Japan than Schizandra Chinensis, from which it 

 may be-distinguished by its broader leaves, larger flowers, 

 and by its blue-black fifuit and pitted see'ds. It grows in 

 southern Yezo, where, however, I failed to find it. Mr. 

 Veitch collected it in September at Fukura, on the west 

 coast of Hondo, and at tl>e end of October I found a single 

 plant near Fukushina, on the Nagasendo, in central Japan, 

 from which I, had the good fortune to gather a few ripe 

 seeds, as this interesting plant has not yet been brought 

 under cultivation. C. S. S. 



Efitomological. 



A Destructive Elnn-tree Bark-borer. 



WE are permitted to extract from Dr. J. A. Lintner's " Re- 

 port on Entomology," presented at the annual meeting 

 of the Western New York Horticultural Society, at Rochester, 

 on the 26di January, the portion relating to a very pernicious 

 Elm-tree pest, the operations of which have not received much 

 attention from our economic entomologists. After speaking 

 of Zeuzera pyrina, Labr., a destructive borer of some of our 

 most highly prized shade-trees, as the Elm and Maple, which, 

 during the last five years, has been brought to notice in 

 northern New Jersey, and in New York city and its immediate 

 vicinity, Dr. Lintner stated that 



These attacks are yet quite local in this state, but are destined, 

 we fear, not long to continue so. Throughout the entire state, 

 and beyond its limits, the beautiful White Elm, Ulmus Ameri- 

 cana, which has been so liberally planted and so highly prized as 

 our most valuable shade-tree, is suffering from the ravages of a 

 hidden and insidious enemy, and the trees are dying, one by 

 one, from a cause not apparent and known to but few. This 

 is chargeable to the operations of one of our longicorn beedes, 

 Saperda tridentata, Olivier, the larvae or grubs of which work 

 in the inner bark and sap-wood of the trunk — the attack ap- 

 parently commencing not far above the ground and gradually 

 extending upward. When the grubs are numerous, their 

 broad, flat burrows so reticulate and run into one another as 

 effectually to girdle trunks of two and three feet in diameter ; 

 with the circulation arrested, the death of the tree .inevitably 

 follows. 



No effecdve remedy against this attack has as yet been 

 found. It is probable, however, that where it has not pro- 

 ceeded too far, protection may be attained in coating the bark 

 with some thick repellant substance (of which carbolic acid 

 and Paris green should be components) that would repel egg- 

 deposit or prevent the passage through it of the newly hatched 

 larva. This coating need not be applied to the entire 

 trunk, but might be limited to a broad zone of several feet 

 at and beyond that part where the burrows of the preceding 

 year were mainly run — to be found by removing portions of 

 the bark, which will readily scale off from the deserted older 

 infested portions. 



A still better remedy, I think, would be to remove the outer 

 bark from the entire infested portion of the tree in the spring 

 (occupied at the time by larvre or the pupee), by shaving it 

 down to the inner bark until the first indications of the fresh 

 burrows are disclosed. A kerosene emulsion of good strength 

 brushed over the shaven surface would kill the insects, after 

 which a coating of some thick substance, as lime and cow- 

 manure, should be applied to prevent the splitting of the sap- 

 wood from exposure to the sun, drying winds or extreme 

 weather. 



That the barking of Elms to even a greater extent than this 

 may safely be resorted to, appears from experiments made in 

 France by Monsieur Robert, detailed in the Gardeners' Chronicle 

 and Agricultural Gazette, for April 29, 1848, and quoted by Dr. 

 Packard in his recent report on Insects hijurious to Forest 

 and Shade Trees, as follows : " The whole of the outer bark 

 was removed from the Elm ; this may be done conveniently by a 

 scraping-knife shaped like a spokeshave. The operation caused 

 a great flow of sap in the inner lining of the bark (the liber), and 

 the grubs of the Scolytus beetle were found in almost all cases 

 to perish shorUy after. The treatment was applied on a large 

 scale, and the barked trees were found after examination bv 



the commissioners at two different periods to be in more 

 vigorous health than the neighboring ones of which the bark 

 was untouched. More than two thousand Elms were thus 

 treated." 



Monsieur Robert had also obtained good results from cutting 

 out strips of the bark of old Elms, about two inches wide, from 

 the boughs down to the ground. "It was found that where 

 the young bark pressed forward to heal the wound and a vig- 

 orous flow of sap took place, that many of the larvae near it 

 were killed ; the bark that had not been undermined was con- 

 solidated and the health of the trees improved." For a long 

 period of years the Elm had been remarkably freefrom insect- 

 attack, but now it is struggling for existence against four insect- 

 destroyers, so pernicious in their operations that we are al- 

 most compelled to look upon it as a doomed tree. The Leu- 

 zera is robbing it of its beautifully branching top ; the Elm-leaf 

 beetle is defoliating it and rendering it in midsummer useless 

 for shade ; the caterpillars of the white-marked Tussock-moth 

 (Orgyia leucostigma) are skeletonizing its leaves and arrest- 

 ing terminal growth by amputating the ends of the twigs and 

 strewing them over the ground ; and, lastly, the three-toothed 

 Saperda — the most dangerous of all — is running its mines 

 through sap-wood and liber so closely and tortuously that the 

 death of the free is the inevitable result. 



It is sincerely to be hoped that, should these suggestions for 

 staying the ravages of the last-named insect not prove to be 

 practicable, other means may be found so efficient and so sim- 

 ple as to lead to their general use by individuals and city au- 

 thorities, and that the steady progress northward and westward 

 of the two other Elm' destroyers — the Zeuzera borer and the 

 Elm-leaf beetle — may be stayed, and the most beautiful and 

 serviceable of our shade-trees be spared to us and to coming 

 generations. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



Agave angustissima. — The picture and full account of this 

 Agave, published in Garden and Forest (vol. vi., p. 5), 

 were highly interesting to growers of succulent plants in 

 this country, and still more interesting is the fact that, 

 through the kindness of Professor Sargent, who sent seeds 

 of it to Kew, it is likely soon to become known in collec- 

 tions here, the seeds having germinated quickly and freely. 

 The offer of seeds through your pages (vol. vi., p. 6) to any 

 person wishing to grow this plant should be taken advan- 

 tage of by all cultivators of such species of Agave as A. 

 filifera and A. Schottii, to which ornamental and compact 

 growers A. angustissima is closely related. The attention 

 of collectors and botanists generally should be drawn to 

 the forethought and good nature which attended the re- 

 discovery of this plant. It is difficult to interest botanical 

 collectors in the introduction of desirable plants into cul- 

 tivation. 



Begonia, Gloire de Sceaux. — This is a hybrid between B. 

 Socotrana and B. metallica (sometimes called B. subpeltata), 

 which was raised by Messrs. Thibaut & Keteleer, of Sceaux, 

 near Paris, in 1885, and distributed the following year as 

 "a very floriferous, vigorous, compact, pyramidal plant, 

 two feet high, with broad obliquely cordate leaves, deep 

 green, with a rich metallic lustre, and terminal and axillary 

 panicles of bright rose-colored fiowers, produced in the late 

 winter or early spring." Somehow the plant did not take 

 in England, and it was almost forgotten when Mr. Jen- 

 nings, the gardener to Mr. Rothschild at Leighton Buzzard, 

 showed a group of it beautifully grown and full of flowers 

 at the last meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society 

 (January 17th). It was then generally thought to be a new 

 plant, even those who had tried the plant when it was first 

 sent out failing to recognize it again in the fine specimens 

 shown. Of course, it was awarded a first-class certificate 

 as well as a Banksian medal for good cultivation, and was 

 generally voted the best "new" plant of this winter. The 

 flowers stand well above the leaves, are of good size and 

 substance, and, what is even more valuable in a Begonia, 

 they stand several weeks both on the plant and when cut. 

 The progeny of B. Socotrana is proving of exceptional 

 value in the garden. Here is another instance of the good 



i 



