40 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ January 21, 1892. 
compact, deep green bushes dotted in the early season with their 
beautiful bead-like blooms are very pleasing, but in the latter part 
of the season their sprays of blossom are particularly beautiful. 
The name Erica is derived from erico or ereico, to break, and is 
said to have been applied in allusion to its fragile branches, but 
according to Paxton it was applied from some of the species being 
supposed to have the quality of breaking stone in the bladder. 
The name carnea is more appropriate than that of herbacea, which 
is sometimes applied to the plant, which is not at all herbaceous in 
its habit. The flesh coloured variety is vastly superior to the 
white, which produces its flowers much more sparsely. Peat is 
the most natural soil for these little Heaths, but sandy loam will 
grow them quite well. Another valuable property is the ease 
with which they may be transplanted at any time. E. carnea was 
introduced from Austria in 1763. 
While a few other flowers are in bloom, among others being 
Iberis stylosa, a neat little flesh-coloured Candytuft, growing here 
only about an inch in height, it is not to be expected that many 
will face the cold winds now prevailing. When this is so one’s 
eyes and thoughts are directed to other features of the plants, such 
as their foliage and their young growths. G-oing round my garden 
the other day I was particularly delighted to observe the beautiful 
appearance of the young leaves of a plant new to me—Tellima 
affinis. The young leaves, just through the ground, looked like 
some tiny parasol or miniature Mushroom or Toadstool, tinged 
with green and decorated with scalloped margins. I have admired 
the plant several times since, and always with increasing pleasure. 
This Tellima is described as having pure white Lychnis-like flowers, 
about a foot in height. The generic name is a curious example of 
the way in which botanical names are sometimes formed. The 
original genus was Mitella, a diminutive of raitra, a mitre, the fruit 
being somewhat mitre shaped. Robert Brown separated the genus 
Tellima from Mitella, the former name being an anagram of Mitella. 
The native habitats of all the species are in North America, and 
the most suitable soil is peat. The natural order is that of the 
Saxifragacese. If the flowers of Tellima affinis possess attractions 
equal to those of the young leaves or the curiously beautiful 
Achimenes-like coral-red roots the plant will prove an attractive 
one. The underground beauty of these little roots brings one in 
mind of the beauties and curiosities among roots and bulbs. We 
have gnarled-looking roots like those of the Anemone, curious 
tubers like the Begonia, and great beauty in the colouring of the 
outer coverings of the Gladiolus and other bulbs, besides the 
curious woolly coating under the skins of some Tulips and the 
exquisitely netted outer coatings of some of the reticulated Irises ; 
and so with these and other beauties before us if we take heed to 
Wordsworth’s saying, “Come forth into the light of things, let 
Nature be your teacher,” we shall pass through these winter days 
and enter into the joys of spring with hearts made more worthy to 
(receive the treasures of the season. — S. Arnott. 
EXPERIMENTS IN TREATING THE POTATO 
DISEASE. 
(^Continued from page 27. 
The experiments that have been hitherto made in combating 
the Potato disease have not proved very successful, and the results 
are altogether tantalising. In some cases the remedy bas proved 
thoroughly effectual in securing the Potato against the scourge, 
and enhanced the quantity and quality of the crop ; whilst in 
other cases, and those the majority, the dressing has not only 
failed to arrest the disease but actually caused the speedier collapse 
of the plants, and depreciated the produce, both as regards quantity 
and quality, more than the disease did on undressed plants. These 
results point conclusively to—1, The efficacy of the remedy when 
applied in proper form, at the right time, in an effective way. 
2, The uselessness and power for harm of the remedy when applied 
in improper form, in a haphazard manner. Indeed, the inefficacy 
of the remedy is distinctly traceable to errors in compounding and 
mistakes in administering the preparation. Nor is that all, for 
there is so much empiricism and prejudice abroad with regard to 
the cause and treatment of the Potato disease, that remedies 
brought forward against it are not given a fair chance. Therefore, 
before proceeding to define the remedy, we may briefly describe 
the fungus causing the Potato disease, for without a knowledge of 
the malady to be combated it is impossible to prescribe for and 
treat it successfully. 
The Potato fungus (Phybophthora infestans) is unquestionably 
one of the most fatal parasites to which the Potato is subject. 
In sonae years half or more of the Potato crop is destroyed by 
the di-ease, causing heavy losses to allotment holders and farmers. 
The fungus is spread over Western Europe, the Northern United 
States of America, and Canada. 'There is, therefore, no evading its 
attacks, for the fungus is not only widespread, but is found on 
several plants of the order Solauacese, both wild and cultivated, 
and occasionally infects plants of the order Scrophularineae. The 
spores are carried by the wind, in dry air only (though they have 
been detected in moist air over water), broadcast over the land, 
no one knows how far and wide. "These “seeds” of disease, 
driven before the wind, settle in hollows, flat and damp places, 
and are caught freely on exuberant and crowded vegetation.. 
Thus the Potato plants in the hollows receive the most spores, 
and the tissue being rich, they produce a luxuriant crop of fungus. 
But the plants on the knolls not only receive the fewest spores, 
but their tissues are hard and dry, so that the spores of the fungus, 
finding so little moisture, germinate badly, and the tissues are so 
poor in nourishment as to produce a puny fungus. But there cannot 
be any Potato disease without Phytophthora infestans spores, 
suitable tissues, essential moisture and warmth, for these are 
necessary for the germination, growth of the seed, and the per¬ 
fection of the fungus. 
No means are yet known by which a plant can be made disease- 
proof. Manorial applications to the soil may and do, when taken 
into the system by the roots, so energise the protoplasm of the 
plant, strengthen its cell walls, and thicken and harden its epidermal 
tissues as to enable it to resist attack, or repel invasions, of the 
fungus. Yet we must not forget that the Woody Nightshade 
grows on walls—a mere pigmy of the type found in hedgerows— 
and that, though it can hardly collect sufficient nourishment in 
that position to become thrifty and produce berries, it supports a 
fungus—the dreaded Phytophthora infestans. Believers in the 
Potato fungus attacking Potato and Tomato plants only that are 
constitutionally weak or plethoric in habit, through disadvantageous 
climatic, soil, and cultural agencies, will take note of the fact that 
thrifty as is the Woody Nightshade growing on a wall it cannot 
resist becoming a host of the Potato fungus. Schizanthus plants 
grown in pots in the dry air of a greenhouse fall a prey to the 
parasite ; and Tomatoes collapse by housefuls through attacks of 
the Potato fungus. 
There is also another noteworthy fact —namely, that very little 
(if any) Phytophthora is found on Potato and Tomato plants 
before July, therefore we cannot admit the climatic doctrine, for 
Potatoes and Tomatoes grown under glass have climatic conditions 
more favourable to the fungus in January than outdoor plants are 
favoured with in July. 
For the reasons specified we are bound to relinquish shelter¬ 
ing in predisposing causes, climatic influences, constitutional 
weakness, and heredity. Also, what is more to the point, such 
beliefs are fatal to inquiry. More, they postpone indefinitely the 
employment of those means imperatively necessary to preserve our 
Potato crops from the ravages of the Potato fungus. Attend by all 
means to those essential conditions of cultivation experience has 
proved best calculated to produce healthy plants and abundant 
yields in Potatoes ; but let there be no trusting to the weather, 
make no mistake that the Potato fungus will recur as certainly as 
the seasons, and potent for mischief in all, more so in some years 
than others. 
The appearance of the Potato disease is so well known that 
description would be needless were it not essential to a right com¬ 
prehension of the fungus so as to combat it successfully. The 
attack of the fungus on a Potato or Tomato leaf is easily detected 
by the presence of a minute yellowish-green spot, passing rapidly 
into brown. This spot bears, on the under side of the leaf, a thin 
whitish coating on a watery-looking discoloured border round the 
spot. The whitish coating consists of erect, branched stalks, 
emerging through the stomate (breathing pore) in small groups, 
each stalk having a few branches bearing conidia near the tips. 
The erect stalks (conidiopheres) spring from an abundant mass of 
mycelium (filaments) pervading the tissues of the leaf, ramifying 
between and lying in contact with the cells, abstracting their con¬ 
tents, and causing the leaf to decay. The mycelium spreads 
through all parts of the plant, lying in the intercellular spaces, 
boiing through the cell walls, sucking the cells for nourishment by 
means of minute roots (haustoria) and soon destroying the plant, 
the diseased parts either drying up or becoming decayed. 
The spread of the fungus is efEected by means of the conidia, 
containing five zoospores imide. The conidia do not immediately 
reproduce the fungus, but in the presence of a dewdrop or rain¬ 
drop divides into five egg-shaped masses (zoo.spores), and these 
having each two hairs (cilia), which they can move, swim in a 
dewdrop, thus reaching a suitable part of the plant, and then push¬ 
ing out tubes, each one on its own account, they enter by the tubes 
through the stomata into the interior of the plant and reproduce 
the fungus. The disease spreads rapidly, for the zoospores are not 
only set free by the conidia “ bursting,” but any movement of the 
infested plant by wind scatters the conidia all round, and the wind 
' carries these seeds of disease nobody knows where, nor how far and 
