186 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ August 30,1SJ83. 
tliat are expected to come into bloom for the next few weeks. 
Of those fairly open at the present time Harrison’s Seedling is 
the most effective. Its hold leathery foliage and its fine trusses 
of white bloom, which have a faintly tinted pink eye, recommend 
it strongly. It is a grand variety for forcing either as an exhi¬ 
bition plant or otherwise. Apart from this and one or two other 
forms, the greater portion of the varieties grown here have yet 
to flower. 
Pinks have been very showy and continue so; for though the 
great masses of the common white form are past their best, John 
Ball and numerous allied sorts come forward to take their place, 
and a further succession will be kept up with the Carnations 
and Picotees, of which a number of varieties are represented 
here. 
Lychnis (Agrostemma) coronaria var. atro-bangtiinea 
is very showy and useful. Its dark red flowers are abundantly 
produced, very persistent, and exceedingly useful when cut for 
decorative purposes. It commences to flower in early summer 
and continues till autumn. It is, however, a somewhat delicate 
plant, and succumbs to severe frost in a wet winter. It grows 
2^ or 3 feet high, and produces seeds in abundance, which germi¬ 
nate readily either in a frame or outdoors; and if the young plants 
are placed in 60-size pots, kept in a cold frame for the winter, 
and planted out in spring, its absence from the flower border 
never need be conspicuous. There are several varieties of this 
plant all well worth growing. The type has ordinary red flowers 
not nearly so dark as the above. The variety bicolor has white 
flowers with a red centre, and alba is pure white. 
Achillea Ptarmica flore-pleno is a well-known old 
occupant of the flower border, and its rambling habit may have 
caused it to be less grown than it used to be. It varies in height 
according to soil and situation, ranging from 1^ to 2 feet, loaded 
with innumerable double pure white flowers fully half an inch 
in diameter disposed in compound corymbs. The flowers are 
very useful for bouquet work. Though this plant has an un¬ 
pleasant intruding habit it may be kept in subjection by cutting 
round it with a spade or trowel once a year, say every autumn 
when the borders are being forked. 
Achillea serrata, Betz. • Ptarmica serrata, DC .—This 
is a beautiful and interesting plant, 10 to 12 inches high. The 
leaves are more deeply notched than those of A. Ptarmica, and 
of a beautiful green resembling those of a Pink. Flowers white, 
larger than those of A. Ptarmica, and disposed in a similar 
fashion. It is not very common outside of botanical gardens, 
and its native country is uncertain. It is a plant well adapted 
for the rockery, and equally so for the border, lasting a long 
time in flower. 
Lychnis chalcedonica.— One of the best and most showy 
of the taller-growing herbaceous plants. Three feet may be 
given as its average height, and it is admirably adapted for 
planting in the back row of the herbaceous border in a line with 
such plants as Liliums, Delphiniums, Aconitums, &c. it prefers 
a deep rich soil like the rest of the genus. The flowers are of 
so intense a scarlet and so useful as to rank it as one of the very 
best of heibaceous plants. 
Lychnis pyrenaica. —A rare species inhabiting the Western 
Pyrenees at an altitude of 3000 to 4000 feet. It is a low-growing 
plant, making dense rosettes of glaucous spathulate leaves of a 
leathery texture. The flower stems are sub-erect or inclined, 
very wiry, and bearing numerous pure white flowers about half 
an inch across. It might be described as bearing great resem¬ 
blance to a much-reduced Silene inflata with its inflated or 
bladder-like calyx wanting. It is thriving remarkably well with 
us. We grow it in a pan containing good loam and lumps of 
limestone plunged in a cool part of the garden; but its most 
suitable situation would be on the rockery in crevices of lime¬ 
stone, and we intend to have these as soon as it is deemed desir¬ 
able to divide the plant. It blooms more or less throughout the 
whole summer. 
(Enothera Frasert. —A very showy and also useful plant, 
as it flowers at the time when the earlier summer-flowering 
plants are past. If a border is expected to be gay from spring 
till autumn this is a plant to give valuable help. It produces its 
orange-yellow blossoms in profusion, and grows to the height of 
lj foot. It likes good retentive soil, and should not be grown 
in a dry corner or on a dry bank, or disappointment will be the 
result. We have it represented here in clumps every few yards 
in the front portion of the borders, and it is very effective. We 
grow another somewhat allied species under the name of (E. fru- 
ticosa, but whether this appellation be correct or not I cannot 
say. Be it what it may it is a handsome species, and I slightly 
prefer it to Fraser’s CEnothera. It grows 2 feet high; the leaves 
lanceolate, with a slightly toothed margin, and under three- 
quarters of an inch diameter in the broadest part. Flowers pure 
yellow with a green calyx. The leaves of CE. Fraseri are shorter 
but broader, more irregular in outline, with but rudimentary 
serratures, and its green calyx striped with purple. Both are 
very good plants for pot culture, but under such conditions they 
should be supplied with abundance of water. 
(Enothera pumila. —This we grow on the rockery. It is 
a diminutive plant, 6 to 9 inches high. The stems are thin and 
wiry, furnished with small pure yellow flowers a quarter of an 
inch across, and has been in bloom for two months. Its situ¬ 
ation in a garden should be on rockwork, as in this position it 
looks more in place. Seeds are freely produced, which readily 
germinate and make plants. The perennial (Enotheras are best 
increased in autumn by dividing the plants. 
Morina longipolia. —This is worth mentioning, inasmuch 
as it is both handsome and, unfortunately, as yet much too un¬ 
common in gardens, although it was probably the first species 
introduced into cultivation. It is readily raised from seed, and 
will grow in ordinary garden soil if it can only have a moderately 
light position. Some clumps are growing here in partial shade,, 
and have not flowered so freely as those in positions exposed to 
the sun. It is a vigorous Thistle-like plant, with dense crowns 
of radical leaves a foot in length and about 2 to 2^ inches broad, 
quite smooth, lanceolate in form, undulate and acutely lobed, 
w r ith the margins spinose. Flower stems 2 to 3 feet high and 
quite erect. The leaves in whorls of fours, becoming smaller 
upwards and ultimately bracteate, supporting whorled capitula 
of fifty or more flowers. Each spike produces from eight to 
twelve of these whorls, and in robust plants the lower capitula 
are supplemented by additional heads of flowers on stalks 2 to 
3 inches in length. The flowers at first are white, about half 
an inch across, slightly irregular, funnel-shaped, with the long 
slender tube not more than one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter 
and over an inch in length. They are rather fugitive, and a 
somewhat singular phenomenon is that the flowers change from 
white to a carmine colour on the approach ©f falling. The short 
duration of the flowers is compensated for by the number suc¬ 
cessively produced in each capitulum. As a matter of curiosity 
it may be well to add that some of the flower stems have the- 
leaves in whorls of threes, and this symmetrical arrangement 
applies equally to the bracteate ones throughout the entire inflo¬ 
rescence. It is a native of the Himalayas, our plants being- 
from seeds sown two years ago last April ; they commenced flower¬ 
ing at the end of June, and their season is not likely to terminate; 
for several weeks.—T. Entwhistle, Wood Lavm, Didsbury. 
DESTROYING WASPS’ NESTS. 
I notice in your impression of the 23rd inst. that “ T. W. S., Lee," 
calls attention to the above subject. Until the 24th inst. we scarcely 
knew we had any wasps to deal with, but since the above date they 
have made such a raid on nearly all kinds of fruit, that it is distressing 
to see the havoc they have made in such a short time on late Grapes. 
To prevent their entering the vineries we have fixed some hexagon 
or Nottingham netting in front of the ventilators. We have used 
tiffany, but we found it too close—it did not admit air enough. The 
simplest way I have found for dealing with wasps’ nests is as follows. 
When we find a nest we mark it with a stick, and a piece of white 
paper on the top of the stick. This is to show its whereabouts without 
much difficulty. After dark we take a lantern, procure some turpentine 
and cotton waste or rags, saturate them with the turps, then push it 
in the hole, and place a piece of turf or some soil over it to make it air¬ 
tight. If there are no other outlets this application is almost sure to 
kill them ; no digging-out is necessary. A few wasps may be seen about 
the nest next day, because some will remain all night in the trees when 
the weather is fine and warm. We have adopted the above plan for 
several years, and have found it simple and effectual. Sometimes we 
have adopted the following plan, which is very clean and simple—We 
procure a half-pint or a pint beer or soda-water bottle, pour two or three 
tablespoonfuls of turps into it, push the neck of the bottle into the hole, 
and press the soil or a piece of hemp firmly round the neck to make it 
as nearly airtight as possible. If, however, there are other outlets from 
the nest, they must be treated in a similar way.—G. R. Allis. 
TROPICAL AMERICAN MAIDENHAIR FERNS. 
The American continent, and particularly that portion of it included 1 
between Mexico and Peru, possesses a large number of beautiful native. 
Ferns, amongst them being several of the most handsome species of 
Adiantums cultivated in English gardens. Such distinct and well- 
known forms as A. lunulatum, A. peruvianum, A. trapeziforme, A. poly- 
phyllum, A. macrophyllum, A. concinnum, and A. tenerum are all found 
in this district, though necessarily confined to it. As is common with 
many other Ferns, some are widely distributed throughout other por¬ 
tions of the globe. The one to which special attention is called in these; 
notes;—viz., A. tetraphyllum, is extremely variable in different parts of 
