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Garden and Forest. 



[Number 316. 



land. Not knowing what they were, he sent some to Kew 

 for identification, where they were recognized as the tubers 

 of this Oxalis, which has been tried in France as a substi- 

 tute for the potato, and which is much esteemed as a vege- 

 table in some countries. The tubers are cylindric, from 

 two to three inches long, thicker than a man's thumb, 

 marked with numerous eye-like depressions, and colored 

 externally bright crimson. They are white-fleshed and 

 sweet to the taste when raw. Cooked they were not par- 

 ticularly palatable, possibly because they had not been 

 properly cooked. According to Vilmorin, this is the "Oka" 

 of the Peruvians, and is highly esteemed in Peru and Bo- 

 livia, being largely used there. The tubers are acid when 

 first gathered, but by putting them in woollen bags and 

 exposing them to the action of the sun, in a few days they 

 become floury and sweet. The tubers do not swell till late 

 in the season, and they are not dug until after frost has de- 

 stroyed the tops. They are planted in May in light rich 

 soil in rows three feet apart. Two varieties are grown 

 in France, the yellow and the red, and a third variety with 

 white tubers has been raised there. The stems of the 

 plants are fleshy, reddish, prostrate, and the leaves are suc- 

 culent and trifoliate. It is possible that this Oxalis may yet 

 become a favorite vegetable. It is well worth trying. 

 Some of the American experiment stations might take it in 

 hand. The tubers are good to look at, which is a point to 

 be considered in a new vegetable. 



Three good Lachenalias. — I mentioned L. aurea gigantea 

 a few weeks ago as a first-rate garden-plant. It is attract- 

 ing considerable attention here, its rich clear yellow color, 

 tall stout spikes and numerous flowers being exceptional 

 in the genus. It is certain to rank first among Lachena- 

 lias, both species and hybrids. It was introduced to Kew 

 two years ago from Port Elizabeth simply under the name 

 of L. aurea. The second in the trio is L. pendula Aure- 

 liana, about which an interesting note was published in 

 Garden and Forest last year, page 124. Whatever its 

 origin, it is a superb plant and a most distinct one. An 

 example of it now in flower at Kew has a spike a foot high, 

 bearing a dozen large flowers of a rich red color, not a dull 

 red, but brilliant as Brodiaea coccinea. The leaves, too, 

 are broadly ovate, not linear or strap-shaped, as in other 

 Lachenalias. In the note above referred to, this plant is 

 said to produce as many as forty or fifty flowers on a spike. 

 I have never seen more than twenty-six flowers on a spike 

 of any Lachenalia. Growers of these plants here are busy 

 crossing these newer giants with the older sorts. The 

 third species to which I would direct attention is the form 

 of L. tricolor, called quadricolor maculata, which has tall 

 scapes and large flowers, the outer segments of which are 

 yellow, tinged with red, and the inner green, with a broad 

 margin of brown-purple. These three are now in flower 

 in the Cape-house at Kew. They deserve to be grown in 

 every garden where there is a glass house. The older 

 kinds are pushing up their spikes, and will soon make a 

 brave show, and will keep us going with Lachenalia- 

 flowers till May. That is one of the charms of these 

 plants ; they are easily grown, their flowers are pretty and 

 variable in form and color, and they last a long while. 



Grammatophyllum Guilelmi II. — Kranzlin. Plants of this 

 new species were sold to-day at an auction sale and were 

 described as resembling G. Measuresianum in habit of 

 growth ; its flower-stalk averages two to three feet in 

 length, carrying from twenty to fifty flowers, the individual 

 flowers being some four inches across ; the sepals and 

 petals are pale canary-yellow on the outer side, the inner 

 side being almost entirely covered by a bright chocolate 

 blotch, leaving only a narrow rim or margin where the 

 ground is visible ; the lip is white, streaked and marked 

 with chocolate ; the inside is velvety. In its native habitat 

 it is found growing on trees fully exposed to the sun. This 

 is the fifth addition to this genus made by nurserymen 

 within the past five years. They are all tropical, and, so 

 far as general experience goes, extremely difficult to flower. 



London. W. WatSOU. 



Entomological. 



The Plum Curculio on Apple. 



THE very interesting communication of Mr. J. G. Jack, 

 in the issue of Garden and Forest for January 31st, 

 points to a fact to which I have called attention in some 

 of the publications of the New Jersey Experiment Station. 

 That is, while in most of the varieties of apples grown in 

 this state the curculio larva finds it impossible to develop, 

 yet there is at least one, the Baldwin, which, for some 

 reason, will mature the curculio larva as readily as the 

 plum itself. On most varieties of apples the curculio will 

 feed, as described by Mr. Jack, and will also lay its eggs. 

 If the apple remains on the tree the egg rarely hatches. 

 Whether it is that the egg is crushed by the rapid growth 

 of the fruit, or whether the character of the juice is such 

 that it overwhelms the young larva when newly hatched, 

 is not clear ; but certain it is, that in those apples that re- 

 main upon the tree, even when they are punctured half a 

 dozen times or more, no larva? can be found. In one case 

 I counted on a half-grown apple thirty-seven egg-punc- 

 tures, and from not one of them had a larva issued. On 

 the other hand, from every apple that dropped to the 

 ground I was able to breed a larva for every egg-puncture, 

 and the insect finds no difficulty in maturing in apples of 

 any variety after they have dropped from the tree. My 

 suggestion is, that in most cases, and as a rule, the work 

 of the curculio larva does not cause a dropping of the 

 apples ; even in the Baldwin I found that apples on the 

 tree infested by curculio larvae remained attached to the 

 stem until the fruit practically dried up and after it had 

 been abandoned by the larva?. 



This is an important fact, that the attack of the curculio 

 on apple does not cause the dropping of the fruit ; but that 

 in dropped fruit the curculio very readily develops. Of 

 course, this points to the recommendation that has been 

 made for other purposes — that the orchard be kept clear of 

 fallen fruit. In New Jersey many growers accomplish this 

 by pasturing hogs, sheep or cattle in the orchard and thus 

 keeping the ground tolerably free. Such orchards suffer 

 comparatively little. It goes without saying that when 

 fallen fruit is gathered from an orchard it should be de- 

 stroyed, otherwise the larva finds no difficulty in maturing, 

 no matter where the fruit may be piled. Another point of 

 some interest to which I have called attention is, that the 

 range of food-plants of the plum curculio may be larger than 

 we now know of. Two or three years ago I captured spec- 

 imens of the beetle on the June-berry, Amelanchier cana- 

 densis, and on many of the berries found the characteristic 

 egg-punctures, while still others had been almost entirely 

 hollowed out by what was certainly a curculio larva, and 

 probably of this particular species. _, _ _ . , 



Rutgers College. JOIM B. Smith. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Cercidiphyllum Japonicum. 



A FIGURE of this remarkable tree appears in the illus- 

 tration on page 106 of this issue, the first which has 

 ever been published, in which Mr. Faxon has worked out 

 the structure of the flowers and fruit from material for 

 which I am indebted to Professor Miyabe, of the Agricul- 

 tural College at Sapporo, in Yezo. 



In Cercidiphyllum* the leaves on sterile shoots are either 

 alternate or opposite ; in their axils small acute red buds, 

 covered with four to six thin scarious slightly imbricated 

 scales, are formed early in the autumn. The branchlet 

 ends during the winter in a small scar between two buds 

 when the leaves are opposite, and at the side of a single 

 bud when the leaves are alternate. Early in the following 

 spring the buds develop short spur-like, almost obsolete, 

 branches, which produce a single leaf and terminal flow- 



* Siebold & Zuccai'ini, Abhand. Akarf. Miinch. iv., pt. iii., 238. — Flora, 1S47, 729. 

 Walpers, Ann., i., 364.— Maximowicx, Mi-L Biol., x. t 367. 



