June 21. 1888. J 
JOURN'AL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE OxiRDENER. 
513 
good bed may sometimes be made against a blank wall after the dung 
is sufficiently sweetened, a bed about 4 feet wide, well trodden down, 
and built something like a steep-pitched lean-to roof will bo ; but, 
in fact, very short dung cannot well be built up perpendicularly, neither 
would it be so well, for this lying against the wall presents a diagonal 
surface, which can easily be covered up to any extent. Spawning, 
covering with earth, &;c., may be done the same as recommended above, 
and a deep coating of straw or litter will be all that is wanted, 
examining it from time to time to see that the heat does not decrease, 
and that the spawn does not expend itself uselessly in runniner into the 
litter, which it will sometimes do, to the injury of the crop. Very often 
a good crop is obtained in this way, the more liberal supply of dung 
making up in a great measure for the want of shelter. Even the wall 
itself may be dispensed with. 
STYRAX OBASSIA. 
A HANDSOME Japanese tree of moderate size bearing the above name 
has been growing in Messrs. J. Veitch &; Sons’ nursery at Coombe Wood 
for ten years, and has often attracted attention by its ample foliage. 
This season it has flowered freel}'', and specimens sent to the meeting of 
the Royal Horticultural Society on the 12th inst. were at once certificated 
when placed before the Floral Committee. Additions to our lists of 
flovvering trees are not too frequent, and it renders any of sterling 
merit like this Styrax all the more acceptable. It cannot be claimed as 
a novelty in the strict sense of the term, as it was described and figured- 
in the “Flora Japonica” by Siebold and Zuccarini in 1835, but it is 
Fig. 7.3.—ST ye ax OBASSIA. 
I have had as good a crop of Mushrooms on a bed out of doors as I 
lever had in a house. The bed was made as above, only, instead of being 
51 “lean-to,” it was a “span,” the dung being built up into a steep 
I'idge-like shape, and well beaten, &c. A good heavy covering is the 
jirincipal thing, and if the dung be in a good well-tempered condition 
ir. October, when the bed is made, it is not likely to lose heat until the 
Mushrooms are formed and a crop secured. A cellar is also not a bad 
p'ace for a bed ; and we all know th.at Mushrooms are now and then 
found in very singular p’aces. I have seen some that were produced in 
a co.al mine 400 feet deep. But, as winter is a time when most struc¬ 
tures are in use, 1 would advise the amateur who has no accommodation 
that way to try the effects of a bed quite out of doors, as above. This 
he can do at litt'e expense if he be dving in a town where dung is 
p’entifu'. The result is likely to lie encouraging, and very often the 
Mushrooms so produced are better in qua ity than others more assisted 
by artificial means.—11. J. K. 
known to few except botanists and those who have made a speci.al study 
of trees and shrubs. It is said to be a native of the province Senano in 
the Island of Xippon. 
The leaves when of full size on the tree at Coombe V ood are 8 to 
10 inches in diameter, nearly round in outline, frequently irregularly 
and deeply serrated at the apical margin, of a light soft green, much like 
the Catalpa. The tree is bushy in habit, producing its pure white flowers 
in racemes G to 8 inches long, the petals somewhat narrow and pointed, 
as shown in the illustration (fig. 73). The leaves depicted there, how¬ 
ever. are those found at the base of the racemes on the flowering 
branches, and are not nearly so large as the mature leaves lower down 
the branches. It has proved quite hardy at Coombe, where it stands on 
a slope moderately sheltered by hedges. 
