November 23, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



557 



this week by Sir Trevor Lawrence, has rich rosy purple 

 ■flowers with a deep blood-crimson lip, and is altogether 

 more attractive than the type, good Orchid though this is. 



Cattleya leucoglossa is a beautiful hybrid of Veitchian 

 origin, the parents being C. Loddigesii and C. Fausta, the 



latter a hybrid between C. ex- 

 oniensis and C. Loddigesii. In 

 the soft blush-lavender color of 

 its well-formed flowers and the 

 white front lobe of the label- 

 lum this new hybrid has quite 

 exceptional attractions. It is 

 what all garden hybrids should 

 be, a plant which, while com- 

 bining all the good qualities of 

 its parents, is superior to both. 

 It obtained a certificate. 



Dendrobium striatum is a 

 Veitchian hybrid of somewhat 

 remarkable parentage, having 

 been obtained from D. Japoni- 

 cum, one of the smallest, and 

 D. Dalhousieanum, one of the 

 largest of all Dendrobes. It 

 has rosy flowers not unlike 

 those of D. nobile, with a 

 curiously formed lip. It cannot 

 be called an acquisition to gar- 

 den Dendrobes, though as a 

 hybrid it is probably of special 

 interest to morphologists. 



New Chrysanthemums. — The 

 following were awarded cer- 

 tificates at the last meeting of the Royal Horticultural So- 

 ciety : W. H. Atkinson, a fine Japanese variety, described 

 in my last letter ; Vesuvius, also Japanese, a good deco- 

 rative flower, large, of good substance and form, its color 

 rich orange ; Golden Ball, a golden yellow Japanese va- 

 riety of medium size, raised in the centre, the petals droop- 

 ing. It is said to be free and a promising plant for cut 

 flowers ; Emily Doone, Japanese, a large flower, white, 

 the outer petals tinged with rose, the central ones creamy 

 yellow. 



Mr. Cannell, of Swanley, sent a tray of twelve magnifi- 

 cent blooms of last year's best production in the vi^ay of 

 new Chrysanthemums, Viviand Morel, which is a great 

 improvement on the older Etoile de Lyon. He also exhib- 

 ited twelve fine blooms of one of the very finest of all 

 Chrysanthemums, Colonel W. B. Smith, which, I believe, 

 we owe to your Mr. Spaulding. It is as grand among the 

 golden-colored varieties as E. Molyneux is among the 



Fig. 94.- 



-Larva, pupa and imago of 

 Oak-pruner. 



crimsons. 



London. 



W. Walson. 



Entomological. 



The Oak-pruners. 



'pHROUGHOUT the month of September there were notice- 

 -^ able along the roads in parts of New Jersey and Pennsyl- 

 vania, broken and dying twigs and branches on Oaks of all 

 species and of all sizes. These became more numerous and 

 prominent as the month advanced, and what was at first re- 

 garded as an accident, or as a consequence of tlie anthracnose, 

 so abundant during the year, proved on investigation to be 

 the result of insect attack, and of an old offender at that. The 

 first noticeable sign of injury was a premature coloring of the 

 leaves ; the first high wind snapped the dying branch, often 

 leaving it suspended by a few fibres, dead and dry, until a 

 heavier wind brought it to the ground. An examination of 

 the fallen branches at this time shows that the broken end is 

 clean cut, except for the bark, and that there has been a de- 

 liberate girdling from the centre outward, leaving only the 

 bark and a few wood-fibres intact to prevent immediate break- 

 age. In the very centre will be seen, on close examination, a 

 little plug of wood cuttings deceptively resembling plant-pith, 

 and if this is lifted out a smooth hole about an eighth 6f an 

 inch in diameter is disclosed. If the branch or twig be then 



split there will be found, at a distance of from one to two 

 inches, another plug of shavings, and, an inch or more be- 

 yond, yet another, or sometimes there will be the end of the 

 gallery. Lying in the burrow between these last plugs, or be- 

 tween the second plug and the end, there will be found a 

 rather deep yellowish larva, with small brown mandibles and 

 a considerably enlarged head and thoracic segments. In this 

 burrow the larva rests quietly during the winter, changing to 

 a pupa in spring. In this pupa all the appendages of the 

 future adult are separately encased, and we readily recognize 

 it as a long-horned beetle, which, when it finally matures, 

 proves to be a species of Elaphidion. Two, if not three, spe- 

 cies are engaged in this destructive work. All are very much 

 alike, of a chestnut-brown color, sparsely irrorate with pale 

 hair, massed into a more definite pattern on the elytra. The 

 forms of the larva, pupa and imago are very well shown in 

 figure 94. 



Ordinarily, the insects are not very abundant, though 

 scarcely rare, and their injury amounts to a somewhat hap- 

 hazard, and by no means severe, pruning. Even in seasons 

 like the present, where the insect has appeared in unusually 

 large numbers, the pruning is not really excessive ; but on 

 shade and ornamental trees it is sometimes scarcely judicious, 

 and, occasionally, decidedly disfiguring. In some of the 

 broken branches, two or even three larvae were found at short 

 intervals ; but there is rarely more than one attempt to girdle. 

 How do the larvae nearest the extremity of a branch know 

 that there is another, nearer the base, who will attend to sev- 

 ering it ? . I have also bred the beetles from young Oak stems 

 and trunks as well as branches, the burrows in one case ex- 

 tending beneath the surface. In no instance did any of these 

 trtmk-borers make any effort to girdle, though they gave out 

 exactly the same species bred from larvae that had girdled 

 branches. 



I have not been able to satisfy myself whether or not the 



Fig. 95. — Burrows of Elaphidion in branches of scrub Oak. 



insects usually, or preferably, attack healthy rather than dead 

 or dying wood. It sometimes seems as if they did ; but it is 

 certain, also, that they very freely attack diseased or injured 

 branches. In an Oak-brush, through which a fire has run one 

 year, these larvae will be found in great numbers the year fol- 



