152 



Garden and Forest. 



[March 26, 1890. 



European observers as a Rose stem-borer, because the larvae 

 have been found in Rose stems; and, in a "Rose Supple- 

 ment" to the Gardeners' Chronicle for July 7th, vol. viii. (1877), 

 ,1 figure (Fig. 8) is given of this insect under the name of the 

 " Rose stem-boring Saw-fly," in which the Savv-liy itself is well 

 represented, hut the figure of the magnified larva shows that 

 it must belong to some other species, as it is covered with 

 bristles or hairs, whereas the larva of E. ductus is smooth. 

 The truth seems to be that the fully grown larv;e, in search of 

 suitable places in which to undergo their transformations, 

 often select the pithy part of the Rose-branches and stems 

 where they have been pruned off and exposed. They never 

 bore independently through the hard, woody part of the stem, 

 and never go deeply enough into the pith to cause serious 

 injury to the stems of the plant. Like the Cornel Saw-fly re- 

 cently noticed (vol. ii., p. 520), they also select very soft or 

 decaying wood in which to hibernate and pupate. As is the 

 case with many other species of Saw-flies, this one is said to 

 be parthenogenic. Fortunately, the remedy for this possibly 

 troublesome pest is easily procured and applied, and thor- 

 ough applications of hellebore at the right times will clear the 

 bushes of all larvae. 



The insect was described and well figured by the late Dr. 

 S.C.Snellen von Vollenhoven [Tijdschrift voor Entomologic, 

 viii. [1865], p. 73, pi. 3), and a translation of the text by J. W. 

 May was given in the Zoologist (Newman's) for 1870, p. 1,993. 

 In Europe an ichneumon, Cryptus emphytoriim, Boie, is 

 known as a parasite of this Saw-rly. J '. G. Jack. 



Arnold Arboretum. 



New or Little Known Plants. 

 Aster ptarmicoides. 



THIS pretty little Aster, of which a figure appears on 

 page 153 — the first which has been published of it — 

 is hardly kown in gardens, although, while it is not one of 

 the showiest of the American Asters, it is one of the prettiest 

 and most graceful of them all, and therefore well worth a 

 place in the herbaceous border or in the rock-garden. It is 

 especially well suited to plant among the crevices of rocks, 

 for its natural place of growth is in such situations where 

 it is found from western New England to Minnesota, and 

 then westward to the Saskatchewan country and the 

 mountains of Colorado. 



Aster ptarmicoides is a dwarf, rigid plant, the wiry stems 

 varying in height from six to twenty inches, or growing 

 rather taller when planted in rich garden soil. The leaves 

 are lucid on the two surfaces, linear, or the lower ones 

 somewhat spathulate, and three or four inches long. The 

 flowers, which are produced in corymb-shaped cymes, are 

 white. 



Aster plar?nicoides was discovered by Mr. Thomas Nut- 

 tall near Fort Mandan, on the Missouri, before it was 

 known to be an inhabitant of New England. Botanists 

 have had different views in regard to this plant at different 

 times during the last fifty years, and it has been referred by 

 them to no less than six different genera. A taller and 

 more slender variety of this plant (var. Georgianus) has 

 been found in north-west Georgia and in Arkansas. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 



THIS week has been one of extremes as regards weather. 

 It began with a heavy fall of snow accompanied by a sharp 

 frost.until the thermometer fell to ten degrees,or twenty-two de- 

 grees of frost. So low a temperature in March has not before 

 been known here within the last fifty years. Wednesday, the 

 fifth, brought a south-west wind and sunshine, and on Thurs- 

 day the temperature at midday was fifty-five degrees in the 

 shade. Whilst a little cold was wished for to check too forward 

 vegetation, so much as twenty-two degrees when fruit-trees 

 are in bud and even in flower means disaster. 



Amongst the plants now in flower at Kew the following are 

 noteworthy: 



Tacca artocarpifolia. — This is a most remarkable stove- 

 plant. Tacca is a genus of about nine species, three only of 

 which are known in cultivation: T. (Ataccia) cristala, recently 

 noted in Garden and Forest ; T. pinnatifida, enonomically 

 interesting, its tubers being described as " resembling new 



potatoes " and the fecula from them being known as South 

 Sea Arrowroot (it is also largely used in the same way as Sago 

 for puddings, etc); T. artocarpifolia is the largest of the three. 

 From its tuberous root-stock spring numerous leaves on stalks 

 three or four feet long, the blade two feet across and divided 

 into stalked pinnatifid segments. The (lower scapes are erect, 

 six feet high, and each one bears a whorl of leafy bracts sur- 

 rounding a cluster or umbel of numerous green-brown flow- 

 ers, which are stalked and elegant in arrangement. Probably 

 the most attractive feature is the numerous long arching 

 brown filaments which spring from amongst the flowers and 

 hang over Medusa-like. This species is a native of Madagas- 

 car. It requires plenty of moisture, rich soil and a tropical 

 temperature all the year round. It is not what one would call 

 beautiful ; still from its elegant, stately appearance and the 

 extraordinary character of its inflorescence it should rank 

 amongst select plants for cultivation in large stoves. 



Godwinia gigas.— -I noted this plant when it flowered at 

 Kew last year, and merely mention its flowering again now 

 because hitherto it has not flowered two years in succession. 

 Until the introduction of AmorpJiopliallus Titanum Godwinia 

 was far and away the most gigantic of all cultivated Aroids. 



ChaMvEDOREAS. — More than thirty species of Chamaedorea 

 are cultivated at Kew, both in the small houses and in the 

 large Palm-house, where they are effective as well as useful as 

 undergrowth to the large Tree-Palms in the beds. They are 

 even more ornamental in a house devoted almost exclusively 

 to Tree-Ferns, large Aroids and the most striking of the 

 Mara7itacea, the Chamaedoreas being planted amongst the 

 large leaved Anthuriums and Philodendrons for the sake of 

 contrast and elegance. In addition to the feather-like charm 

 of their foliage there is also the decided beauty and delicious 

 fragrance of their flowers, which are developed freely at this 

 time of year on branching, drooping spikes, in clusters below 

 the head of leaves. ■ In some of the species the flower spikes 

 are not unlike those of the Meadow-Sweet and are quite as 

 elegant. In others, as for instance C. Ernesti-Augusti, the 

 female plants bear long unbranched spikes with numerous 

 bright red flowers, the whole spike afterward changing to a 

 coral-red color. Few people think of growing Palms for the 

 sake of their flowers, owing to the fact that most of these 

 plants can never grow to flowering size in ordinary plant 

 houses. But Chamasdoreas are exceptions in this respect, as 

 they flower when less than six feet high ; indeed, C. tenella 

 and C. pygmaa are the most diminutive of Palms, flowering 

 and fruiting when only a foot high. C. scand-ens and one or 

 two others are remarkable as climbing species, a character 

 which renders them available for clothing large pillars or 

 growing against the trunks of the largest Palms. 



Camellia reticulata. — A very fine bush of this large flow- 

 ered species is now one of the chief attractions in the winter 

 garden at Kew. Camellias have, as a rule, little to recommend 

 them except the stiff symmetry and color of the flowers, but 

 this big flowered species differs from them sufficiently to gain 

 the admiration of the most artistic of flower-lovers. Along 

 with size — for the flowers measure as much as nine inches 

 across — there is the charm of looseness and elegance in the 

 curve and arrangement of the petals, in which characters no 

 two flowers are alike. Then the color, a deep rosy red, with 

 the bunch of golden stamens showing through here and 

 there, is most attractive. The leaves are stout and leathery, 

 not shining, whilst the conspicuous reticulating nerves give 

 them a character by which the plant is easily recognized. Ac- 

 cording to Mr. Hemsley the proper name for this plant is C. 

 spectabilis. It has been in cultivation here about fifty years. 



Cantua dependens. — There is no more beautiful green- 

 house climber than this, but it has a bad reputation in gardens 

 because of its generally falling a prey to red spider and rarely 

 flowering well. When fortunately situated, however, it makes 

 a magnificent show whilst in flower, its elegant trumpet- 

 shaped, bright red flowers hanging in loose corymbs from 

 almost every branch. The finest example I have ever seen 

 was growing against the back wall of a lean-to greenhouse 

 with a south aspect, the Cantua being planted in a border of 

 peat at the foot of the wall. It flowers in the spring. A plant 

 of it is now in flower in the conservatory here. 



A new hybrid Phaius, raised by Mr. N. Cookson, of New- 

 castle, its parents being P. Wallichii and P. tubercnlosus, is, 

 perhaps, the most interesting Orchid in flower in England at 

 the present time, which is saying a good deal for an Orchid, 

 a hybrid, too. But the plant is of exceptional beauty, both in 

 coloj and form, whilst in constitution it appears to have inher- 

 ited the sturdiness and free-growing character of the female 

 parent, P. Wallichii. We believe that it is only three years 

 since the seedswere sown from which the plants now flowering 



