HORTICULTURAL JOURITAL. 27 
as eqiial parts of loam, leaf soil and peat, with a proper admixture of sand, 
will answer perfectly for the growth of this plant ; but a small proportion 
of well decayed manure may he added with advantage at the last shift, and 
and good drainage should be secured. . Alpha. 
In Crard. Chron. 
NOTICE OF THE EED CAMOMILE. 
PyretJirum roseum, (Biebekstein.) 
For some years, a vague report has reached us of a Caucasian plant, 
having astonishing and eminently useful properties ; that of destroying fleas 
and bugs ; it was also known that this marvellous plant belonged to the 
genus Pyrethruin, but the specific character was uncertain. Some referred 
it to the Pyrethrum caucasicum, others to the Pyrethrum balsamita of 
Persia ; the mystery has just been cleared up and very happily. Thanks 
to the philanthropy of Baron Eolkersahm, of Pakenhof, in Courland, this 
precious plant has just been introduced into Brussels, in the rich collections 
of the botanical garden. We shall hope then that hence in some years the 
red camomile shall have freed our good country people from one of the most 
abominable plagues which afflict our sensitive humanity. 
Some details of a plant of so certain a future as that of the red camomile 
will be without doubt acceptable to our readers. We owe them, we must 
acknowledge, to the extreme kindness of the philanthropist whose name 
merits being associated with that of the red camomile, and of being known 
by all. 
In Trans-Caucasia, its country, the red camomile bears also the name of 
the Persian camomile^ the flea killer, send flea- wort ; it forms a little shrub, 
with perennial roots, branched, 12 to 15 inches high, bearing many flowers 
at first of a deep red, afterwards of clear or rosy red, and an inch and a half 
in diameter, (the size of the flowers will also cause this plant to be cultivated 
as an ornament in our gardens,) the stalks dry up after the ripening of the 
seeds ; but the roots are perennial, and for some years may be multiplied by 
division. Freshly gathered, the flowers are not very odorous ; but, dried, 
they acquire an odor so strong and penetrating, that it kills all the insects 
and all the vermin of which, until now, no certain agent of destruction has 
been found. The red camomile can bear 20° centigrade of frost, a tempera- 
ture to which it is often submitted on the Caucasian mountains and on the 
plains elevated from 4,500 to 6,500 feet above the sea level. Although it 
inhabits virgin soil, it is easily brought into cultivation in gardens, and since 
