276 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER 
[ April 8, 18£6. 
or biennial, or, at least, are best treated as such ; and, so far as 
our experience goes with capitata, elliptica, Stuartii, &c., it i3 
the only means of procuring an unfailing crop of flowers annu¬ 
ally. The plants rarely dower before the second year, and to 
keep up a supply it is necessary to make an annual sowing, so that 
the seedlings of this year will be depended on for the supply of 
flowers next year, and so on. P. sikkimensis ripens seed freely in 
our climate, and these sown when gathered soon germinate, and 
may be pricked out in boxes or rich beds in a shady situa¬ 
tion and well watered through the summer months. In autumn, 
when the leaves have died down they can be shifted to their 
flowering quarters, lifting a good ball of soil with each plant. 
The bed in which they are to flower should be deep, rich peaty, 
and well shaded, and the result will abundantly repay all the 
trouble taken with the seedlings. The flowers being extremely 
handsome, emitting a delicious fragrance, which always succeeds 
in attracting one to them. The leaves all proceed from the root, 
from 8 inches to a foot long, obovate and oblong, and without 
meal on either side; nerves reticulated, prominent on the under 
side, dark green above, doubly and sharply serrated margins. The 
flower stem grows about a foot high, carrying an umbel of from 
ten to twenty or more large sulphury yellow sweetly scented 
flowers; involucre of from five to seven narrow sessi'e leaflets, 
half the length of the pedice's “It inhabits wet boggy p'aces 
at elevations of from 12,000 to 17,000 feet elevation at Lichen 
and Lachong,” covering acres with a yellow carpet in May and 
June, it was first introduced by Sir J. D. Hooker about 1850. 
It flowers with us May and June, but may be forced ear ier, and 
makes an excel'ent pot plant. It is perennial, but the best 
flowers are produced the second year after sowing.—D. 
THE INSECT ENEMIES OF OUR GARDEN CROPS. 
THE APPLE. 
C Continued from page 72.) 
Even as in the human body health is best maintained by the obser¬ 
vance of natural laws, not by swallowing physic ; so with fruit trees, 
and the Apple particularly, it is better to adopt such simple measures 
as are likely to prevent insect attacks than to apply remedies that may 
check or kill these foes in their various stages. It is in dark and crowded 
—perhaps also damp—orchards, that moths find themselves screened from 
observation while depositing eggs, and their broods of caterpillars are less 
likely to be seized by insect-eating birds; also if the grass, as sometimes 
happens in such orchards, is suffered to grow long, caterpillars blown off 
by the early summer gales escape hurt, and manage to crawl up the trunks 
to feed again. I doubt whether the fires of weeds or refuse which one 
sees about some orchards, kindled with a view of keeping off insects, do 
much good ; the smoke is almost sure to be freely diluted by air, and 
moths hover at a distance, to return as the fire dies down. Owing to 
their peculiar habits, some moths that seek out the Apple are astir during 
the colder months of the year, when the fruit-grower entertains no appre¬ 
hensions, and their progeny pierce the buds the moment they begin to 
expand. The cause of the mischief is often mistaken ; thus a gardener 
picks off some damaged buds, and discovering ants about them, believes 
they have been the culprits, though, in fact, they have only come to suck 
the juices exuding from cuts made by caterpillars, which have probably 
migrated. Indeed, as I have myself noticed, ants favour us by dragging or 
carrying to their nests some young caterpillars, and they certainly do not 
breed or foster them, if they do their aphis pets. 
Ia some places on the Continent the caterpillar of the lunar spotted 
pinion (Cosmia pyralina) is common on the fruit trees, and particularly 
fond of the Apple. The moths fly in June or July, and the eggs appear 
to remain unhatched till the spring ; the young caterpillars feed early 
and are of full size during May. These are of voracious habit, thick and 
fleshy, greenish, with a few paler spots and two dark lines. They are 
easily detected, but as yet the species has only been occasionally noticed 
in England, along the southern counties chiefly. The worst moth foe of 
our Apples is, I should say, the caterpillar of the small ermine moth 
(Yponomeuta padella)— that is, as far as the buds and leaves are con¬ 
cerned ; though that promiscuous feeder, the caterpillar of the winter 
moth (Chimatobia brumata), is generally seen upon the Apple each year 
in varying numbers. About its habits it may suffice to remark that the 
green eggs are laid upon the bark of the trunk or branches by the wing¬ 
less female, which crawh thither on emerging from the pupa at the end of 
the year. Flight to her being impossible, the late Edward Newman, 
when there occurred an outbreak of this pest amongst the cider orchards 
of the Midlands, wisely suggested that any method must be good by which 
she could be kept from climbing the trees. After experiment a composi¬ 
tion of Stockh dm tar and cart grease was proved to answer admirably 
daubed round the trunks in a ring, care being taken that the moth cannot 
get up by the aid of posts or loose branches. It does no hurt to the 
Apple laid on in November or December, but would do so when the 
we ither was sufficiently warm to cause some absorption. It is, however, 
desirable to slit the bark next year, since the composition tightens it 
a unewhat. Whatever ejrgs may be laid below this line they will not be 
likely to produce caterpillars that can reach to the buds ; and if examina¬ 
tion be made at night with a lantern many moths may be picked off. 
Such search should always be carried out during mild days of December 
in the case of wall fruit trees where the insects cannot be thus prevented 
ascending. Some people indulge the expectation that a cold spring like 
the present may destroy the germs of life in the eggs of this and other 
species, but there is no ground for this idea; the emergence is delayed, 
that is all. Many caterpillars must be killed by the rains and winds of 
spring, though they keep themselves for a while concealed in the unex¬ 
panded buds, subsequently they feed exposed, save with the protection 
of a few silken threads. As upon any alarm they drop, it is easy to shake 
them off small trees or shrubs. This caterpillar is a slim looper of a 
whitish green or brownish hue, umally adult in May ; it then descends to 
bury in the earth, and as it remains under ground several months by 
forking the soil and other measures quantities of the chrysalis can be 
destroyed. 
From some cause, about which I cannot be positive, the caterpillars of 
the little ermine moth (Yponomeuta padella) were abroad in very small 
numbers during the season of 1885. Probably a large proportion of the 
early brood were killed off by the damp of the preceding winter, for it is 
their habit to emerge in autumn from the egg, remaining torpid until the 
approach of spring. It is a species liable to variation as to colour and 
dotting; one form, which is frequent upon the Apple, and has white fore 
wings, with a thick cocoon for the chrysalis ; while the Hawthorn kind 
is nearly transparent, has received the name of Y. malivorella, and devour 
it they do indeed, through the influence of numbers, small as is their in¬ 
dividual size. Beside the effects of their jaws there is the nuisance of 
their webs, which are drawn over the branches and shoots to enable them 
to travel readily, also perhaps affording a partial screen from birds, while 
the influence upon the growth of the tree is injurious, and it looks as if it 
were the drill ground of a party of spiders. The removal of these webs 
from Apple trees when they have reached this conspicuous stage can be 
managed, certainly, and all wandering caterpillars brushed or shaken to 
the earth, where they can be disposed of, but no fruit-tree grower should 
allow his trees to be thus preyed upon by the enemy ; and at the period 
when the moths emerge it will be noticed that they crawl about the 
branches in a sluggish way, and they, too, may be hunted up and killed, 
since they fall should they be alarmed, so that they may be gathered and 
crushed. 
The moth, fortunately, is conspicuous by it3 contrast of colour, and the 
caterpillar has a'so black spots, but upon a ground of dull yellow or buff 
and a black head, which shows more markedly when the creature is 
little. July ia the month that brings forth the moths in most profusion ; 
then the eggs are laid, so coated over with a glossy substance that we do 
not see them on the twigs, but they are artfully placed near blossom or 
leaf buds, generally near the former, so that they have food at hand when 
they rouse. No doubt it is advisable whenever the moths have been seen 
about to wash or syringe the trees well with any compound, or even a 
simple solution of soap just at the time the young brood are likely to be 
shifting from their winter retreats to attack the first growth. In France 
and Germany, where some years the Apples over many miles of country 
demonstate the ravages of this pest, it is noticed that the ermine cater¬ 
pillars begin to feed in the autumn, like the brown tail, then commencing 
again ia the spring, they are of a size to do mischief more rapidly than 
they can with their English habits. Hawthorn hedges near orchards do 
sometimes appear to draw away the ermine moths from the fruit trees.” 
An insect of the same group, but smaller, lives, in some instances, on 
the buds of the Apple ; it is popularly called the “ red bud caterpillar” 
from its deep red hve ; the moth is the black cloak (Spilonota cynosba- 
tella), allied to the “ brown cloak,” unpleasantly abundant as caterpillars 
uoon Roses during some summers. As the eggs are laid singly it is 
almost impossible to discover them, else there is a long space while life is 
dormant in them, the catapillar seldom appearing until the blossoms open, 
when they are gummed together by the insect, which migrates from flower 
to flower till full fed, and should supply run short burrows into any 
immature fruit it finds. This is a species which sometimes gives trouble 
in houses, where the ermine moth seldom enters.— ENTOMOLOGIST. 
ORCHID NOTES. 
Oechids at Wyngote. — In Mr. O. W. Neumann’s garden at 
Allerton there is a narrow house between the other houses, in fact it 
connects the two, and has a central path with a narrow stage on each 
side. This house has been gay with Orchids in bloom. A plant of 
Laelia superbiens was very noticeable. It is a strong grower, and the 
flower spike was fully 5 feet in length, with fifteen or sixteen large 
flowers at the end. The individual flowers are 3 or 4 inches in diameter, 
and of a beautiful deep rose, marked with dark red, the lip b^ing crimson 
and yellow. Phalaenopses were also very fine, especially P. Schilleriana, 
which have been grown in the stove and placed in their present position 
while in flower. The whole of these are grown on large blocks of wood, 
with a small portion of sphagnum moss. The blocks are secured in 10-inch 
pots by means of charcoal, which is covered with moss to retain moisture 
during the summer. The numerous roots have attached themselves to 
the wood, and extend in some cases 18 inches below the plant. The 
healthiest and most robust of these plants is now bearing 120 flowers, 
and was raised a few years ago from a flower stem. Dendrobium Ains- 
worthi, a good dark variety, was in full beauty, also D. Wardianuro, 
D. Devonianum, and D. crassinode, a fine varie’y. In another house 1 
noticed some fine plants of these varieties swelling iheir flower buds, and 
the old D. fimbriatum, which has generally been seen at St. George’s 
Hall in such splendid condition, was showing flowers in abundance as 
usual. I also observed in a basket a splendid piece of that useful and 
beautiful D. Dearei growing most luxuriantly. Several forms of C. 
