1870. J 
GARDEN GOSSIP. 
110 
stout wire, witli a short connecting-piece bent at right angles, and is intended 
for furnishing blank vertical sui-faces with pots filled with plants. The mode of using it may 
be readily seen from the accompanying figures, for which we are in¬ 
debted to the inventor, IMr. W. J. Tait, of Rugby. Wherever a nail or 
a hook can be driven in, there the Floreten can be fixed 
up, and a vase or flower-pot steadily and secimely hung; by using an inverted bell-glass 
instead of a flower-pot, an aquarium may be formed; and again, by fixing two or more on the 
same level, and laying a board on the horizontal part, a shelf of any desmed length may be 
extemporized. For window-gardening, for covering bare dead walls with living plants, or for 
furnishing many a nook and corner in the conservatory of the villa garden, this little con¬ 
trivance will be found to be of much utility. The odd-looking name is, we are* told, derived 
from Jlo7'es, and teneo to hold. 
-®HE accompanying engraving, from the Gardeners' Chronicle, repre¬ 
sents a new Scale Insect which attacks Camellias, to which Prof. Westwood proposes 
to give the name of Coccus Jlocciferus. My 
attention, he writes, was directed in the early part of 
last July to certain white objects upon the leaves 
and stem of a Camellia. They were oblong, generally 
curved, about one-third of an inch long, and had all 
the appearance of the droppings of some small bird, 
one end being thickened and rounded. They were 
found to consist of the waxy, cotton-like secretion of 
an undescribed species of Coccus. The elongated 
floccose mass was convex on its upper surface, having 
a slight depression rimning along the middle of the 
back, and also a fainter one along each side ; it had 
also the appearance of transverse but cmved impres¬ 
sions, so that it might almost be taken for the body 
of a footless catei'joillar. The female was broadly ovate 
and depressed, of a pale greyish buff colour, the 
hinder part of the body having a slight fleshy 
tinge, the head tolerably distinct, without any ap¬ 
pearance of antennae or legs visible from above. 
The hind part of the body was covered with minute 
particles of exudation, giving it the appearance of 
having been powdei'ed with minute grains of moist 
sugar. The floccose mass enclosed numerous eggs. 
The insect has since been met with also on 
Camellias in the Dutch gardens. 
- Howard recommends Eupatorium gracile odoratum as being very 
useful for bouquets, coat flowers, and general decoration in winter. It does well in a 
warm greenhouse ; and before the first lot of flowers are open there is a second 
lot showing on the same plant. Strike in February and March; pot in any ordinary good soil, 
and plant out-of-doors in June. Take up early in September, and with the ordinary care of a 
Verbena it may be had in flower all the year round. 
- ®HE large plant of Vanilla at Osberton is growing in a mixture of 
peat and charcoal, in a successional Pine-pit, the temperature of which rarely ex- 
