JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
1G0 
[ August 19, 1880. 
Brilliant, I.e Gdant, Countess of Kingston, and Miss Briscoe, 
raised by Tbibaut & Keteleer ; Lelia (Fontaine), Iiosea grandi- 
flora (Lequiri), Lady of the Lake (Rodger McClelland) ; Mentor, 
W. E. Gumbleton, and L’Abbe Froment, raised by Lemoine. 
Doubles: Comtesse Horace de Choiseuil, Lucie Lemoine, Gloire de 
Nancy, and W. E. Gumbleton, raised by Lemoine ; Esther, raised 
by Bouchet. 
This completed the tour of a tolerably busy day, one of the 
greatest treats of which was, however, the beautiful collection 
of paintings at Mr. Simpson’s, comprising some fine specimens 
of the most celebrated modern painters, English and foreign, 
Which Mr. Simpson possesses, and which I shall hope some day to 
have a more leisurely look over. There were other places—those 
of Mr. Wollaston, Mr. J. D. Pawle, and Mr. E. Pawle—which I 
hope also to see ; but I have said enough to show, I think, that 
Reigate may well lay claim to taking a very foremost place in the 
records of horticulture.—D., Dtal. 
DINTS ON PROPAGATING. 
A year or so ago I told you of the difficulty I found in striking 
cuttings of a double Wallflower. Some time afterwards in the 
same year, border Picotee cuttings refused to root from a cause 
that appeared to throw light on the difficulty I had with the 
Wallflowers. The season was uncommonly wet, and the hand¬ 
glass over the Picotees having been taken off during rain, and 
replaced when it ceased, the soil appears to have become sour, 
and the majority of the cuttings failed to root. They were taken up 
and placed in a fresh compost, which was only kept moderately 
moist. In the following spring they began to grow, and ulti¬ 
mately made good plants. The Wallflower cuttings that had 
taken such an unaccountable time to root had been inserted in a 
Shady situation under a bellglass kept closely covered in dry 
weather, and exposed during rain. Some that I inserted this 
spring in a sunny border and shaded with a piece of calico during 
bright sun have rooted satisfactorily. 
I may mention in reference to this subject that a piece of 
Euonymus, having been thrown upon a weed heap in autumn, 
was covered there in a horizontal position. In March this was 
found to have callused, and it ultimately became a plant. Acting 
upon this hint, last autumn I made a mound in a north-west 
border, and stuck Euonymus and Wallflower cuttings in the 
sides of it horizontally. This mound was several times frozen 
through in the winter, yet by the middle of March'most of the 
Euonymuses and all the Wallflowers had callused, the latter 
indeed having produced roots. Both were then planted out and 
attended to for a while, and have become fine plants. It would 
be worth while to try cuttings of Hybrid Perpetual Roses in this 
wav. The mound might be built up as the cuttings were placed in 
position. —A. Boyle. 
FLORAL DEFENCES. 
. 
n 
{Continued from page, 146.) 
Glandular Hairs .—A very frequent mode of floral defence is con¬ 
structed by the growth of hairs, each with a little glandular knob at 
the tip secreting a sticky fluid. These glandular hairs are so very 
common that they can hardly have escaped the notice of those field 
naturalists who care for flowers. Examples may be found in the 
Marsh Crepis, Alpine Circiea, Mountain Barrenwort, 
Gooseberry, Linnsea, and many other flowers. But 
we must not infer that glandular hairs have no other 
value to the plant, or that they are always employed 
in keeping away disagreeable visitors. The Mountain 
St. John’s-wort is thickly beset with glandular hairs, 
though the plant secretes no honey, and therefore 
has none to guard. The sepals of some Poppies ex¬ 
hibit a forest of glandular hairs, but the sepals fall 
off when the flower opens. 
The sting of a Nettle is a tubular hair with a poison 
bag at its base; at the tip is a little knob, which 
breaks off on the slightest touch. The knob acts 
like a cork in keeping the poison from the air, and 
when it is broken off the pointed neck of the hair 
pierces the skin. When the leaf is crushed the 
tubular hair is compressed, and the poison-bag can¬ 
not discharge its iiritating fluid. 
Thorns, prickles, and sticky secretions are obviously more suited to 
be external defences, and we now come to the more delicate appli¬ 
ances for protection within the flower. 
The common Foxglove has a floral defence which, though very 
simple, is effectual. The lower lobes of the bell on the inside are 
beset with stiff hairs, over which creeping insects and smaller honey- 
loving flies find it difficult to pass ; but the humble-bee goes straight 
on, and even uses the hairs to push himself further in over the pearly 
surface which lines the bell. But why are the little bees excluded ? 
Fig. 34. 
Flowering 
Gooseberry 
(Kerner). 
The four stamens and the pistil of the Foxglove are pressed closely 
against the inner surface of the bell, so closely that they are some¬ 
times overlooked. A little bee that would not half fill the tube of 
the bell might pass under the anthers and get the honey without 
touching the pollen ; but the humble-bee is so stout that it cannot 
help rubbing against the anthers and carrying off pollen. Now the 
Foxglove is one of those flowers in which the pollen is ripe before 
the pistil of the same flower is ready to receive it. This is one of 
Nature’s contrivances to ensure cross-fertilisation ; for if the pollen 
and the pistil were ripe at the same time, shut up as they are in the 
Fig. 35.—Cobsea scandens (Kernel-). 
same tube, the pistil would be fertilised by the pollen from the same 
flower. So, as you may observe for yourselves, in the beautiful 
racemes of the Foxglove, the lower flowers come out first, and in 
some of them the anthers may already have ripened and withered 
when the pistil is ready for the pollen ; whilst in the upper flowers 
the pollen is plentiful but the pistil scarcely to be seen at all, being 
not yet fully grown. Now the humble-bee begins with the lowest 
flower. He has come dusted with pollen from another Foxglove, and 
he finds the pistils of the lowest flowers ripe and ready to receive it. 
As he goes up from flower to flower he leaves pollen where it is 
Fig. 36.—Campanula barbata (Kernel-). 
wanted till his coat is brushed fairly clean. "When he reaches the 
higher flowers he finds no pistils, for they have not yet grown, but a 
profusion of pollen from the ripe anthers. Thus he gets his coat re¬ 
dusted with pollen and flies off to the lowest pistil-bearing flower of 
another like plant. 
It is not difficult to see how the whole of this wondrous arrange¬ 
ment may rest upon the defensive efficiency of the little tuft of stiff 
hairs just within the bell of the Foxglove flower. 
One of the most beautiful of our British wild flowers, the Buckbsan 
or Bogbean, is protected in a similar way. The Yellow Iris or 
Water-flag has a similar defence. 
Circlets of hair within the tube of the flower, and pointing inwards, 
are called by Dr. Kerner ,£ weels,” a name applied to wickerwork 
frames used for catching fish. Examples may be found in common 
