146 
ON THE CULTURE OF ROSES. 
gallons of water, if out of doors : after being well stirred together and left standing 
until the water has become quite clear, take it out with a watering pot, and mix 
with it about one-sixth of strong tobacco water ; which, if applied to the trees with 
a syringe, will effectually eradicate the Aphides and many of the larvae of other 
insects which roll themselves up in the buds of the flowers and leaves. The rose 
gall-fly ( Cynips rosce) which receives its name from the rose-galls it occasions by 
puncturing the bark ; the ear- wig ( Torficula auric alar ia ) is very destructive to 
the flower ; the Cow-lady, or Lady-bird ( Coccinclla 14 guttata) ; several species of 
the crane-fly, as Cecydomia and Tipula, and some of the saw-flies, as Hylotomce rosce , 
Alanthus viridis , and Athalia rosce, with several species of moths, all of which 
deposit their eggs on the leaves and flowers where the larvae feed, and if not picked 
off, eventually destroy the bloom, if not the plants themselves. The Green Rose 
Chaffers ( Cetonia aurita) are suspected by many persons to do much damage to 
the flowers, because they are often found about and upon them, sometimes in great 
numbers ; but we believe it has been satisfactorily ascertained that they do not at all 
injure the essential parts of flowers, but merely suck the honey at the bottom of the 
corolla. The larvae are blind, and roll themselves on their backs, contracting the 
annulations of their bodies, to move forward, instead of walking. They are two or 
three years in arriving at their perfect state*. 
Rose Trees are also subject to a kind of fungus in certain situations called Puccinia 
rosce. It first appears in very small red spots 
which shortly increase till the leaves become 
partially covered with it in the form of a fine 
red dust. The seed-vessel has from four to 
seven cells (as is shown in the magnified plant), 
pointed, and the foot-stalk thickest at the base. 
The best remedy we have met with for this is to 
add a handful of sulphur to the mixture recom- 
mended for the Aphis, and sprinkle it with a 
watering pot rose. 
Sap of the Rose Tree. From a plant of 
R. rubiflora, at Hammersmith, with a stem 
three feet and a half high, and two inches and a quarter diameter, when deprived 
of its branches, and the head sawed off 29th of July, thirty-one ounces of sap 
flowed in about a week, which, together with loss by evaporation, exceeded three 
pints. Chemical analysis gave the following ingredients f : 
Oxalate of Lime 
. 2.9 
grains. 
Acetate of Lime 
. 1.907 
do. 
Acetate of Potash 
. 0.7 
do. 
Gum and Extractive 
. 2.1 
do. 
Sugar ? soluble in Alcohol 
. 0.1 
do. 
Loss .... 
. . 0.353 
do. 
7.25 
* Curtis’s Entomology. 
Notes of a Naturalist, 1832. 
