62 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 155. 



would develop interest in the subject, stimulate inquiry 

 and promote popular knowledge. It would organize and 

 unify the thought and effort which are now lost because so 

 desultory and disunited. It would impress Congress with 

 the paramount importance of our forest-interests and serve 

 notice upon our law-makers that here is one subject con- 

 cerning which the people expect them to make laws. 



A friend communicates the following from a letter re- 

 cently received from Professor Goodale, who is now in 

 Australia on his way to New Zealand : 



It may interest you to know what species are grown as gar- 

 den-plants in the cooler parts of Ceylon and in extra-tropical 

 south Australia. In Ceylon, for instance, around the railroad 

 station at Matale, in a well-kept enclosure, were the ordinary 

 perennials and annuals of our own gardens. Phloxes, Pelar- 

 goniums, Portulacas, Zinnias, Tagetes and Roses were grow- 

 ing side by side with truly tropical plants. The juxtapositions 

 were, in some cases, positively startling. 



In Adelaide and vicinity, where oranges ripen in perfection 

 and where the Date-palm is of vigorous growth (although prac- 

 tically unfruitful), one finds Chrysanthemums, Amaranths and 

 the ordinary bedding plants in good condition. Some of the 

 parterres in the Botanic Garden at Adelaide are extremely 

 beautiful. 



The Orchid houses contain about 400 species and varieties, 

 mostly in good condition. The Fern houses contain almost 

 500 species and varieties, but there are many specimens dis- 

 tributed through the other houses. Overcrowding, that most 

 natural and pardonable fault, is very marked, and would seem 

 to demand imperatively that Dr. Schomburgk's request for 

 additional houses should be granted by the colony. 



I regret to say that Dr. Schomburgk, the Director of the 

 Garden, the veteran explorer, the discoverer of the Victoria 

 regia, is now very seriously ill. He has been indefatigable in 

 his strenuous efforts to develop certain resources in the col- 

 ony and to place its Botanic Garden among the attractions of 

 Australia. In some cities one is asked at the clubs : Have you 

 seen such and such a street or such and such buildings ? In 

 Adelaide the stranger is accosted by his host with the inquiry : 

 Have you seen our Botanic Garden ? And I can assure 

 you that it is well worth seeing. 



It is now a week before Christmas. The journal, Garden 

 and Field (Adelaide, December), contains advertisements as 

 follows : " For present sowing, new seeds of Primula, Calce- 

 olaria, Cineraria, Mimulus, Coleus, Pansy, etc." On our tables 

 at luncheon we have strawberries, cherries, figs and apricots, 

 but the latter are hardly yet ripe. They will be ripe, it is said, 

 a week or fortnight.after Christmas. 



Insect Enemies of the Pitch Pine. 



IN Garden and Forest for January 7th I gave some account 

 of the Tortrix-moth and the White Pine-saw-fly, which are 

 injuring the Pines in southern New Jersey. But I find that 

 these two pernicious insects are not the worst enemies that 

 are attacking these trees, but that several species of beetles 

 are making still greater havoc. 



One of the most destructive is the Fine-writing Bark-beetle 

 {Tomicus calligraphus). The female beetle of this species is 

 small, not more than a quarter of an inch in length, but she is 

 strong enough to bore through the rough bark of the Pitch 

 Pine until she reaches the sap-wood and there makes a mine 

 from ten to twelve inches long, running lengthwise of the tree. 

 Along either side of this mine she makes little pockets quite 

 close together, into which she drops her eggs. These hatch 

 into tiny white grubs, and, as the little mother has prepared 

 the foraging ground for this numerous offspring, all they have 

 to do is to strike out for themselves, eating as they go, making 

 littlezigzag galleries extending at right angles from the mother's 

 central mine. 



The entomologist who named this beetle must have had 

 considerable imagination to have called it the Fine-writing 

 Bark-beetle, as the writing is not specially fine. Although it 

 is so small, they come in large numbers and will soon kill a 

 young tree. They loosen the bark, and the tree puts on a 

 sickly look which seems to invite other beetles of larger size 

 to help on the work of destruction. I have noticed several 

 species of Buprestis on the leaves and trunks of the trees in 

 May, June and July, and we know that the mission of these 

 beetles is to perpetuate their race. Their main business here 

 is to find good places for the next generation, whose food while 

 in the larva state will consist of the pine wood. 



These beetles are from half an inch to an inch in length, and 

 most of them have a metallic reflection, which in some of the 

 species is quite brilliant. It is wonderful how quickly they 

 will find a disabled tree. Last summer about the middle of 

 July a high wind struck our town, leveling a good many 

 trees. Among those that were destroyed on my place was a 

 Pitch Pine, which was broken off about twelve feet from the 

 ground. The top was dense and heavy, and the trunk broke 

 just below the branches, where it was about afoot in diameter. 

 In less than a week from the time it was broken I noticed two or 

 three species of Buprestis beetles on the trunk. Chalcophora 

 Virginiensis and C. liberta were the most abundant, and they 

 soon began to work their way through the bark until they 

 reached the sap-wood. 



Before the summer was over the result of their work could 

 be seen by the sawdust all around the base of the tree, and 

 their sawing could be heard at a distance of several feet. 



I shall now have an opportunity of learning how long these 

 beetles live in the larva state, and shall be able to tell whether 

 any will come out next summer, or whether they will pass the 

 second winter in the pupa state. I think, however, it will take 

 two years or nearly that time for them to mature. I base my 

 conclusion on the fact that two years ago some of these Pines 

 were cut down, and I have just examined the wood and find 

 the creatures in the pupa state still. I removed the bark from 

 a portion of the wood and had a piece split off about fifteen 

 inches long by three in width. In this small piece I liberated 

 twenty-one pupae, all alive. 



These beetles ought to be called wood-engravers, for the 

 mother's work in the soft sap-wood is really beautiful. It con- 

 sists of moderately broad, wavy, irregular depressions, with 

 narrow borders of raised -work, which reaches up to the bark, 

 making separate compartments. Their work is left very clean 

 and white. In each of the compartments, placed on one side, is 

 a little hollow or cradle, which the mother made for the safe- 

 keeping of her eggs. She puts one in each hollow. On this 

 piece of wood which lies before me most of the eggs hatched, 

 and the larvae have spoiled their little cradles by eating their 

 way down into the wood. Some of them went nearly straight 

 down two or three inches. Others went not more than half 

 an inch, and then turned and went lengthwise of the grain. 



The larva pupates in the bottom of its mine, where it makes 

 a cell rather larger than the rest of the tunnel. The holes at 

 the mouths of their tunnels, from which the beetles will escape 

 next spring, are about one-fourth of an inch in breadth. 



Dr. Packard says in his " Insects Injurious to Forest and 

 Shade Trees": "After several years' attempts we have not 

 been able to clear up the habits of either species of Chal- 

 cophora, or to detect the larvae." I think he would have no 

 difficulty in finding the culprits here in all of their stages. 



I occasionally meet with the com mon Long-horned Pine-borer, 

 MonoJiammns confusor, but it is not common here. The most 

 that I have seen have come from White Pine lumber which has 

 been brought from other localities. This beetle is remarkable for 

 its longevity. I have a white pine bureau which I know to be 

 thirty years old, and I do not know how much longer it is since it 

 was made. In the summer of 1889 I heard a grating, creaking 

 noise in this bureau for the first time, and as I had read 

 accounts of this beetle living so long in pine furniture, I was 

 much interested to see what would make its appearance. The 

 saw-dust work of the creature was sprinkled quite liberally 

 over the contents of one of the drawers. Finally a male Long- 

 horned beetle nearly an inch in length, with antennae about 

 three times the length of the body, made its appearance. The 

 creaking noise still continued and the dust was still thrown 

 down, but I saw no more beetles that summer. Again last 

 spring the noise commenced, and two more beetles of this 

 species came out. These were females with antennae not 

 much longer than the length of the body. 



Had these beetles been imprisoned there all these years, or 

 had some mother beetle gained access to the bureau and left 

 her eggs there ? 



Some twenty years ago I occupied a house with an un- 

 finished attic. The timber in the attic was all of white pine. 

 During the ten years that I remained there every summer 

 more or less of these beetles came out of the wood. I never 

 became satisfied whether they continued to reproduce their kind 

 here, or whether they were all in the lumber at the time of 

 building and remained dormant all these years. When a 

 beetle came out from its imprisonment its first move was 

 toward the light. There were several windows in the attic, 

 but the blinds were usually all closed ; still light came in 

 between the slats, and the beetles always started for the nearest 

 window, as if they had no purpose in view except to make 

 their escape. The windows were generally closed, and so 



