IOO 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 158. 



secting pin (Bull., p. 23 ; Ann. Soc. Ent. de France, 1888), and it 

 seems that such experiments have been made in Paris, al- 

 though the final results do not appear to have been pub- 

 lished. Instead of making the numerous punctures which 

 would be necessary in order to destroy all the larvae, it might 

 be worth while to try some experiments with insecticides. 

 A drop of strong tobacco decoction, or of some oil, 

 injected through a perforation, would destroy the insects 

 reached ; but the experiment should be carefully watched, 

 both as to its effect on the plants and insects. Fumigating has 

 been practiced in attempts to destroy the flies, but it is ques- 

 tionable whether fumes strong enough to kill these insects 

 would not also injure the plants. 



To keep a collection free from the pests every new impor- 

 tation should be thoroughly examined, and, if not known to be 

 from uninfected establishments, they should be quarantined 

 in a separate house for at least a year before placing them with 

 unaffected plants. 



The full history of this insect is not yet thoroughly known, 

 and it is not at all certain that it does not live in other parts of 

 the plants besides the new shoots or pseudo-bulbs. Similar- 

 looking, and probably identical pupa? have been found singly 

 in cavities in the fleshy leaves, the spot being indicated by its 

 lighter color and a slight swelling on each side. It has also 

 been reported that the insect makes pea-shaped swellings on 

 the roots, but it has not been proved that this is the work of 

 the same species. 



Isosoma ordiidearum, figured on page 103 from drawings 

 by Mr. C. E. Faxon, was probably first imported into Eng- 

 land with Cattleyas from South America. To the entomolo- 

 gist the insect is interesting, from the fact that it belongs to a 

 group which was long considered to be purely parasitic upon 

 other insects. It seems that a few European entomologists 

 still maintain this theory ; but the studies of Harris, Fitch, 

 Walsh, Riley and others on the Isosomas of the wheat 

 and other grasses in this country have clearly shown that 

 insects of this genus, in many cases at least, subsist entirely 

 on vegetable food and that they are capable of doing much 

 injury to cultivated crops. , ■ 



Arnold Arboretum. J ■ (-*■ J ack. 



Notes on North American Trees. — XXIV. 



57. Hypelate trifoliata. — This small West Indian and Flo- 

 ridian tree has been known for nearly two hundred years, 

 having been discovered in Jamaica by Sir Hans Sloane, 

 who published an account of it in 1696 in his Catalogue of 

 Jamaica Plants ; and all subsequent writers on the flora of 

 the Antilles have described it more or less accurately. The 

 best account which has been published is found in Lunan's 

 Horius Jamaicensis (i., 387), where the structure of the seed 

 is hinted at. Hypelate produces male and female flowers 

 in separate panieles on the same plant, the males probably 

 predominating, as fruit is rarely produced ; and the seed 

 has never been described in the two centuries this tree has 

 been known to botanists. We have been able at last, how- 

 ever, to find a single perfectly developed fruit, and Mr. 

 Faxon has succeeded in working out its structure for the 

 plate in "The Silva of North America." 



The flowers of Hypelate consist of a five-lobed calyx 

 with ovate lobes imbricated in aestivation, slightly puberu- 

 lous on the outer surface, ciliate along the margins and 

 deciduous. The petals are rather longer than the calyx- 

 lobes, imbricated in aestivation, concave, and rounded at 

 the apex, with ciliate margins ; they spread at maturity and 

 are white. There are seven or eight stamens inserted on 

 the margin and between the lobes of the annular fleshy 

 disk ; the filaments are filiform, as long as the petals in the 

 sterile flower, and shorter in the fertile flower ; the anthers 

 are oblong, attached on the back near the bottom with two 

 cells spreading from above downward and opening longi- 

 tudinally. The ovary is sessile on the disk, slightly three- 

 lobed and contracted into a short, stout style, terminated 

 by a large, declinate, obscurely three-lobed stigma ; in the 

 sterile flower it is reduced to a mere rudiment. There are 

 two ovules in each cell borne on the middle of its inner 

 angle, amphitropous and superposed, the upper ascending 

 with the micropyle inferior, the lower pendulous with the 

 micropyle superior. The pistil ripens into a small, black, 

 one-celled drupe, crowned with the remnants of the per- 



sistent style, and supported on the persistent base of the 

 calyx. The outer covering is very thin, although fleshy 

 and rather juicy. The stone has very thick bony walls, 

 and contains a single suspended seed developed from the 

 lower ovule. The seed is destitute of albumen, with a thin, 

 slightly wrinkled testa. The embryo is conduplicate, fill- 

 ing the cavity of the seed, with thin, foliaceous, irregularly 

 folded cotyledons incumbent on a long radicle which 

 points toward the hilum. 



It appears from the character of the embryo that Hype- 

 late must occupy an anomalous position among the genera 

 of Sapindaceas, and that it does not readily fall into any of 

 the tribes into which the family has been divided by Ben- 

 tham and Hooker in the "Genera Plantarum." It may per- 

 haps best be placed at the end of Sapindece, which it 

 serves to connect with the Acerinece. 



Another West Indian tree which occurs also in Florida has 

 often been referred to Hypelate. This is the Hypelate panicu- 

 lalaoi Cambessides, which was first referred by A. L. de Jus- 

 sieu to Melicocca, and which much later was described inde- 

 pendently by Macfadyen in his " Flora of Jamaica" as Exo- 

 thea oblongifolia, his genus Exothea being established for this 

 plant. Radlkofer has already taken up Macfadyen's 

 genus Exothea in Durand's " Index Generum, " and the struc- 

 ture of the fruit of Hypelate shows that his view is cor- 

 rect, and that these two Florida trees cannot remain in the 

 same genera. The fruit of Exothea, unlike that of Hype- 

 late, is baccate, with one perfect cell and the rudiments of 

 the second, with thick dark purple flesh surrounding a 

 large, solitary, oblong, suspended seed without albumen, 

 and with a thin shining testa. The embryo fills the cavity 

 of the seed with very thick, fleshy, plano-convex, slightly 

 puberulous cotyledons, and a short, superior, uncinate 

 radicle turned toward the hilum, and enclosed in a lateral 

 cavity of the testa. 



Our Florida tree should be known as Exothea paniculata, 

 Radlkofer, instead of Hypelate paniculata, Cambessides. 



Radlkofer (Sitz. Acad. Munch., xx., 276) refers to Exothea 

 as a second species, E. Copallilo. This is a plant discov- 

 ered in southern Mexico many years ago by Schiede and 

 Deppe (No. 1295), and merely noticed under its vernacular 

 name, "Copallilo," in the enumeration of their plants pub- 

 lished in 1 83 1 by Schlechtendal in the sixth volume of 

 Linncea. According to Radlkofer, it is the Retonia species 

 of Hemsley ("Bot. Biol. Am. Cent.," i., 213). OfthisplantI 

 have no knowledge beyond that gathered from the brief 

 account inserted in Radlkofer's paper. C. S. Sargent. 



New or Little Known Plants. 

 Lycium Chinense. 



ALMOST every one who has lived in the country is 

 familiar with the Matrimony Vine, with its weak, 

 drooping stems, which fall to the ground unless supported, 

 its pale gray-green foliage and purple flowers, which are 

 borne in pairs from the axils of the leaves, and which, 

 from their close contact side by side, give to this plant its 

 familiar name. It is a species of Lycium, and is related to 

 the Potato, the Tomato and the Solanum, as may be seen 

 from the fruit, which is a small, bright red, oval berry, a 

 good deal like that of some Solanums. It is a native of the 

 Mediterranean region, and botanists call it sometimes L. 

 Europeum and sometimes L. vulgare. Fifty years ago it 

 was the custom in this country to plant a Matrimony Vine 

 on an out-house or a fence whenever any attempt at all was 

 made at gardening, and now, in some parts of the United 

 States, this plant has become fairly naturalized. 



Lycium is a genus with many species widely scattered 

 through the temperate and warmer regions of the world, 

 especially in the countries surrounding the Mediterranean 

 basin, in China, and in the south-western parts of the United 

 States and the adjacent territory of Mexico. There is an- 

 other species which is an old inhabitant of European gar- 

 dens and which is sometimes cultivated in this country. 



