August 14, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



323 



of any C. erubescens known to me. The largest of the Kevv 

 plants has about a dozen stout leaves nearly a yard long 

 and four inches wide ; a stout erect scape two feet long, 

 bearing an umbel of eight flowers, all open together ; tube 

 seven inches, segments five inches long, the latter three- 

 quarters of an inch wide, spreading and recurved, pure 

 white; filaments curved upward three inches long, crim- 

 son; anthers yellow, odor very powerful and fragrant. 

 The plant produces offsets very freely. 



HippEASTRUM BRACHYANDRUM. — Permit me to again call the 

 attention of those of 3'our readers interested in bulbous 

 plants to the merits of this comparatively new and, as yet, 

 scarcely known Amaryllid. It is now established in a cold 

 frame at Kew, where it grows and flowers freely, produces 

 offsets abundantly and ripens seeds every year. It is now 

 flowering, its scapes being a foot long, each bearing a 

 trumpet-shaped flower not unlike a Belladonna Lily in form 

 and color, but a little less in size. A batch of seedlings 

 shows flowers in which the blackish red blotch at the base, 

 characteristic of the type, is absent, the base of the seg- 

 ments being green. This may be taken as evidence that 

 the plant is likely to "sport" under cultivation. There is 

 a figure of the type in the Botanical Magazine, t. 7344. It is 

 a native of Buenos Ayres. In places where the Belladonna 

 can be grown out-of-doors it would be quite at home ; in- 

 deed, it lived through the winter of 1892-93 in a border 

 against a south wall at Kew, but the following virinter 

 proved fatal to it. In general behavior it may be likened 

 to another and much older, but horticulturally neglected 

 bulbous plant, namely, Zephyranthes carinata, which 

 thrives under the same treatment as suits the Hippe- 

 astrum. 



Iris Hartwegii. — Mr. Gerard may be interested in hear- 

 ing what progress has been made at Kew with this species 

 (see p. 287), of which he sent fresh seeds in December last. 

 They were sown at once in a pan of loamy soil in a stove, 

 and as soon as the seedlings were strong enough they were 

 pricked off into other pans and then graduall)'' hardened 

 off. In May they were planted in a bed of rich soil in a 

 frame facing south, and since June they have been left 

 exposed to sun, air and rain, night and day, being supplied 

 with water in dry weather. They are novif healthy plants, 

 each having about half a dozen leaves fifteen inches long, 

 and a tuft of long fleshy white roots, suggestive of strong 

 Asparagus crowns. Nothing could be happier or more 

 promising, although the treatment so far has been the 

 reverse of that described by Mr. Gerard. The Kew plants 

 ought to flower ne.xt year. 



MYOsormiuM nobile. — The best specimens I have ever 

 seen of this interesting Boragewort from the Chatham 

 Islands, near New Zealand, were in the garden of Mr. Enys, 

 at Enys, Penryn, Cornwall, where the conditions appear to 

 suit it exactly. It has been a specialty in the garden of Sir 

 E. Loder, at Horsham, for some years, and I believe it 

 flourishes in the open air in Mr. Gumbleton's garden in 

 Queenstown. It first flowered in England about forty 

 years ago, but it has never become a general favorite 

 among growers of herbaceous plants because of its miffi- 

 ness. It has a thick prostrate root-stock, a tuft of glossy 

 green heart-shaped leaves about nine inches in diameter on 

 stalks about a foot long. The flowers, which are borne in 

 a loose corymb on an erect scape a foot long are nearly as 

 large as common Primroses, and colored two shades of 

 blue. Flowering plants can be grown in two years from 

 seeds. Mr. Enys writes : " I have succeeded with this 

 plant by growing it in the open air under a south wall, 

 planting it about a foot deep in sea sand and covering it 

 with mats in winter. Thus treated it produces leaves a 

 foot across and just short of three feet in height, with large 

 heads of flowers. It ripens seeds abundantly here. I saw 

 it growing in pure sand in the Chathams." 



Campanula Vidalii. — When well managed this is one of 

 the very best plants for the conservatory. Mr. Poc, an 

 amateur, who devotes his garden chiefly to the cultivation 

 of uncommon, but attractive, plants — neglected beauties. 



one might call them — exhibited this week a group of ex- 

 amples of this Campanula, which secured a first-class cer- 

 tificate and the admiration of all who saw them at the 

 e.xhibition. They were in nine-inch pots, the stem about 

 a foot high, with a head of horizontal branches clothed 

 with glossy green foliage, and the flower-scapes were a 

 yard high, each plant having about si.x scapes, and each 

 scape bearing about a score of pure white waxy-looking 

 bells which hung gracefully from near the top. To manage 

 it properly, this Campanula must be raised from seeds and 

 grown on year after year ; cuttings never make nice speci- 

 mens. When about four years old the plants are at their 

 best. The branches of this year develop into the flower- 

 scapes of next, a new set of branches springing from the 

 top of the stem every year. The plants will not bear frost. 

 This species is remarkable in being found wild only in 

 the Azores. It has been in cultivation about forty years. 



Clerodendrons. — Mr. Orpet inquires (see page 288) if 

 there is a Clerodendron in English gardens which answers 

 to the description of the plant he knew fifteen years ago as 

 C. squamatum, and which was a stove climber, with dark 

 green leaves and bright red flovi'ers produced in winter. 

 No doubt, the plant meant is C. splendens, which was in- 

 troduced from Sierra Leone about forty years ago. It is in 

 flower at the present time in a stove at Kew ; indeed, it is 

 rarely without flowers at any time of year. The panicles 

 are from six inches to a foot across, and the flowers are of 

 a rich blood-crimson color. A hybrid between this species 

 and C. Thomsona; (Balfourii) was raised about twenty-five 

 years ago and distributed by Mr. W. Bull. It differs from 

 both parents in having the caly.x. colored dull red and the 

 corolla of a deep crimson color, and, although not as 

 effective as either, it is, nevertheless, a good, free-flower- 

 ing, attractive stove climber. There are fine examples of 

 it in flower now trained against the rafters in the stove at 

 Kew. I have seen this plant doing duty for C. splendens. 

 The other plant referred to by Mr. Orpet — namely, C. 

 squamatum — is our old friend, C. Ksempferi, under another 

 name. It is one of the most useful of stove plants, being 

 easily grown in pots, and with a little management it may 

 be had in flower all the year round. We grow it from 

 spring-struck cuttings in a sunny frame during the sum- 

 mer, removing it into a warm house in October, when it 

 flowers all through the winter, odd plants flowering at 

 other times. It is a native of various parts of India as well 

 as China and Japan, and is one of the most widely culti- 

 vated of srarden-plants. „. .,, , 

 London. W. Watson. 



Entomological. 



Another Herbarium Pest (Ephestia interpunctella). 



IN the early part of the present century the naturalist 

 HiAbner published, in his Samin/ung europaischeti 

 Sciimetterlinge, a description of a little moth under the name 

 of Tinea interpunctella. This insect does not appear to 

 have been noticed or to have attracted any attention in 

 this country until about forty years ago. In his Second 

 Report of the Insecls of Neiv York, published m 1856, page 

 320, Dr. Asa Fitch described the insect as a new species 

 under the name of Tinea zete, or Indian Meal Moth, and 

 he stated that its larva was particularly troublesome to 

 housewives by destroying the cakes used in starting fer- 

 mentation in dough, these cakes being largely composed 

 of Indian meal. It proved to be the same species de- 

 scribed by Htibn&i;, by more recent entomologists classed 

 under the genus Ephestia, or sometimes under Plodia. It 

 may have been introduced from Europe, although this is 

 by no means clear, as it is known to have a wide distribu- 

 tion on this continent. Four years after the description 

 by Fitch, the late Brackenridge Clemens, inthe Proceedings 

 of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, i860, 

 p. 206, stated that the larva was a frequent inhabitant of 

 houses and " feeds on a variety of dry goods, rye, corn, 

 clover seed, on gariic head.s, preserves, especially those 



