46 
SPICES 
CHAP. 
irregular marks on the pod which spoil this, or lower 
the value of the product. 
The caterpillar is black with ash-grey spots, and 
hardly 7 to 8 millimetres long. It runs with remarkable 
rapidity. If the eggs are laid on the flower just after 
fertilisation has been effected, the pest can be destroyed. 
Another moth caterpillar, Plusia aurifera, common in 
Keunion, Madagascar, Africa, Saint Helena, Teneriffe, 
and even southern Europe, is troublesome in eating the 
buds of the plant. The caterpillar is pale green, about 
3 centimetres long, with few hairs. The moth is reddish 
brown, with a broad band of gold across the upper 
wings ; the lower wings are grey, the head and collar 
red, thorax and body grey. 
The caterpillar of Simplica inarcualis is also re- 
ported as occasionally attacking vanilla. 
A small lamellicorn beetle, Hoplia retusa, and an 
ashy-grey weevil, Cratopus punctum, bite holes in the 
flowers and often destroy the column. But the most 
destructive is a weevil [Curculionidae), Perissoderes 
ruficollis, which inhabits Madagascar. The grub burrows 
up the stems of the vine, completely destroying it, and 
all the parts attacked turn black and die. The grub 
pupates in its burrow in a cocoon of dried fibres of the 
stem. The branches affected should be at once cut off 
and destroyed.^ 
Large and small snails [AcKatina and Helix) and 
a slug in Tahiti attack all parts of the plant, and a 
green dove in Tahiti eats the flower - buds. These, 
however, do not appear to be very destructive, and are 
easily dealt with. 
FERTILISATION 
In its native country of Mexico the flowers of the 
vanilla are naturally fertilised by small bees of the 
genus Melipona, and also by humming-birds. But, 
although there are plenty of bees in other parts 
of the world where the vanilla is cultivated, for some 
^ E, Bordage, Revue des cultures coloniales (1901), July, p. 50. 
