195 



Another insect, a destructive Coccid, attacks the young setting 

 fruit. It appears in numbers on the fruit spike as small but stout soft 

 bodied creatures covered with a white fluff, and on their attack, the 

 flower spike withers and blackens : the whole of the berries on a spike 

 may thus be destroyed. This insect is attended on by colonies of 

 Ants (Cremastogaster rogenhoferi) which probably are responsible for 

 the spreading of the Coccid. The four pests just mentioned are 

 always a menace to the pepper grower and his only remedy, quite an 

 effectual one, is the insecticide already mentioned. The insects are all 

 indigenous and no doubt they find a happy feeding ground on the 

 abandoned vines. 



It occasionally happens that the pepper leaves are attacked by 

 caterpillars, but I have only once met a case : this caterpillar, belonging 

 to a Limacodid moth, was a green oval disc beset laterally with hairy 

 processes, and covered all over with irritant hairs. A more destructive 

 caterpillar is one which bores the stem penetrating at the base of a 

 petiole. Subsequently the stem withers up and part or the whole of a 

 vine may be destroyed. 



The roots are also subject to the attacks of insects : not infrequent- 

 ly, certain white ants commit ravages on the root system and the 

 plant may suffer considerably. Occasionally too, some damage is done 

 to the roots by the presence of large fat grubs, dirty white in colour 

 and sparsely covered with short brown hairs : these burrow in the 

 ground and by their movements disturb the delicate vine roots though 

 they do not appear to feed thereon. The large grubs are larvae of a 

 stag-horn (Dynastid) beetle and may be those of Oryctes rhinoceros, 

 the well known coconut beetle. An application of limewater to the 

 neighbourhood of the roots is considered effectual in driving away the 

 intruder. The most serious disease from which the roots are apt to 

 suffer is of rather obscure cause though most probably it is to be 

 attributed entirely to the action of fungi. The symptoms are a serious 

 shedding of the leaves usually throughout a well defined area of the 

 vine which is in relation with the fibro-vascular bundles coming from 

 the affected part of the root. A clever gardener can usually guess 

 which part of the root system is damaged and he proceeds to remove 

 the earth so as to explore the sickly area. Then he scrapes or cuts 

 away the blackened tissue and allows the cut surface to dry directly 

 exposed to the sun's rays. Afterwards he replaces the earth and the 

 vine usually recovers. This disease is more likely to occur in the 

 damp parts of a pepper garden. The roots of pepper appear to be 

 specially sensitive to water, and prolonged rains sometimes bring about 

 the rotting just mentioned. Drought also is prejudicial and may 

 cause the leaves to drop off. 



John Hewitt. 



PATCHOULI. 



(Pogostemon Patchouli, var. suavis, Hk. f.-^P. Cablin, Benth.) 



Patchouli has already been the subject of several articles in the 

 Kew Bulletin. The earliest notice [K.B. 1888, p. 71] deals mainly 



