July 15. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER, 
237 
1 succulent matter in the flower, placing it on the same 
level with that of a Stapelia, while the leaves and stems 
exhibit no more than the usual development of cellular 
tissue. This plant flowered first on the continent last 
year, with Mr. Bauman, of Ghent; and the Horticul¬ 
tural Society of Anvers awarded their first prize medal 
for it. Professor Morron gave a figure of it in La Bel¬ 
gique Ilorticole, and traced its nativity to the Brazils, 
although formerly stated to be from the neighbourhood 
of Duraugo in Mexico. Air. Bauman had it growing 
on a trellis about thirty inches high, out in the. open 
garden all summer, and found the heat of an orange 
house was sufficient for it in the winter. The bottom of 
the stems turn hard and corky with age, when they lose j 
the hairiness, which gives them and the whole plant a 
shaggy appearance. The flowers are produced singly 
on long stalks, and keep open about a week. They are 
! very curious to look at. The bottom of the flower is 
' like a green pitcher, with a whitish limb or border folded 
back, and prolonged into fine projecting corners or 
horns. It is from this portion that the plant is called 
the net-flower, the whole being crossed with numberless 
purplish lines or streaks. The organs of reproduction 
are in one mass in tho centre, in the shape of a star. 
It belongs to 5-Pentandria 2-Digynia in the Linmean 
artificial system. B. J. 
Culture.—I would strongly advise an early search after 
this most curious plant. I am not quite sure if it is in 
London yet, hut if not it will soon be; and very likely it will 
come from cuttings as freely as Ceropeyia or Iioya, two of its 
\ own kindred, and if so we shall all have it by-aml-by; and 
. the way to turn it to the best account in the country will be 
! to keep it in a good-sized pot well drained, and the pot to 
be sunk in over the rim against a south wall, and train the 
! shoots up as far as they will reach. Very likely, that after a 
1 while the roots and bottom parts of the stem will get so thick 
and juicy that the tops might be cut off when the frost comes, 
and the plant would then require no more care than we 
bestow on the fuchsia; or, what is far better, even with 
fuchsias, to turn out the balls out of the pots, and cover 
1 them in half dry soil, or sawdust, or sand, in a dark dry cool 
1 place away from the frost. About London they will grow 
i it in pots for the shows, and some one will be trying to 
imitate the way Mr. Yeitch brought out his beautiful 
Hexacentris, which charmed everybody. I am glad of this 
I opportunity to explain the stamens and pistils of these 
curious As'clepiads to my young readers who follow me so 
earnestly in all my crossing and recrossing vagaries, and the 
1 more so as the father of all our crossing, Koereuter, a 
famous German naturalist, was so much put out by the 
| strange mixture of forms in these parts, that he and others 
verily believed that the pollen itself was the real stamens, 
and that Asclepiads must be fertilized like so many orchids. 
The middle part in the centre of the flower is called the 
little crown ; on this crown is glued or consolidated the 
stigma or female organ, the style, the stamens, the anthers, 
and the pollen, all in one glued mass; the whole of the 
centre is a stigma in the shape of a broad disk, with five 
little horns or projections. These five projections are 
always taken by young gardeners to be the live stamens, and 
no wonder, but they are the part of the stigma to which the 
pollen must be put, and there is a gland on each of the 
projections to which the pollen will stick as if glued. The 
pollen is yellow, not in the usual dust, but in solid bodies. 
There is no trace of stamens at all, and the masses of 
pollen, like little bits of bees-wax, are placed in little 
hollows round and below the horns of the stigma. M hen 
the pollen is ripe, the hollows or anthers open, the lump of 
pollen comes out by its own weight, the wind or the flies 
shake the flower, causing the mass of pollen to swing about 
until it is caught by the gland ou one ot the horns, to which 
! it sticks. D. Beaton. 
GOSSIP. 
Mn. James Barnes, writing to us from Bicton, near 
Sidmouth, in Devonshire, says— 
“ The potato crop, which has this year been planted to a 
large extent in our neighbourhood, is looking woefully bad. 
The disease is making serious havoc both in stem and 
tuber. As to the late-planted, I observe some fields where 
they came up and progressed only weakly a few inches, and 
there they are crippled, and completely stagnated with curl 
and disease, and never will be worth anything. Were they 
mine, I should have ploughed the ground ere this for 
Swedes or common turnips. Apples in this locality are a 
partial crop ; tho early-blooming varieties being cut off by 
the late spring frosts, and the latest-blooming varieties 
being swept off by the heavy rains and high winds. The 
intermediate blooming varieties are the fullest crop.” 
Knowing the source from whence the following inform¬ 
ation, relative to the Crystal Palace, was derived, we 
copy it from The Times. 
“ Various arrangements have been already made by the 
directors of the Crystal Palace Company, in conjunction 
with Sir Joseph Paxton, Messrs. Fox and Henderson, and 
Mr. Owen Jones, and the other gentlemen engaged in the 
reconstruction of the edifice, and in the formation of the 
grounds. The total length of the building will be 1,853 
feet, the. extreme width 384. The new palace will undergo 
several modifications. It will have three transepts—two of 
the same size and height as the original transept, and a 
I central one of 130 feet span, 108 feet higher than the two 
smaller. The roofing of the transepts, as well as of the 
whole of the nave, will be arched, and the ribs will be of 
wrought iron, instead of wood, as employed in the old 
transept, the former material being used, not for the sake 
of durability only, but with the view also of absorbing the 
whole ‘ thrust ’ of the arches, and of preventing its being 
thrown on the adjacent flat roofs of the aisles. The glass 
for the new roofs will be all 21 ounces instead of 16 ounces 
per square foot The sloping form of the ground ou which 
the building is to stand will be made available for the various 
works below the floor line, necessary for the heating of the 
interior, for machinery, and for the stores required in a 
building of a permanent character. This basement story 
will be formed of columns and girders, with brick arches 
fitted to receive the earth for the plants above. The dispo¬ 
sition of the galleries will be much modified. It is deter¬ 
mined that they shall not run along the nave, as at present, 
but shall be generally kept back to the outside walls coming 
forward only at those points where they will command the 
most striking views. The interior will be arranged on the 
following general principles. At one end the climate and 
vegetation will be those of the tropics, gradually changing, 
until at the centre transept, a temperate climate and tem¬ 
perate vegetation are reached, which will prevail throughout 
the remainder of the building. Portions of the palace will 
be converted into quadrangles similar to the fine art or 
medimval courts of the exhibition. These courts will be I 
made to represent the manners, costumes, Ac., of different 
countries. For instance, one court will form an Indian 
bazaar, with adjoining durbars and reception rooms. Here 
all the illustrations of Indian life will be collected in as I 
vivid and characteristic a manner as possible. Another | 
quadrangle will be devoted to the illustration of China. A 1 
third will contain a reproduction of one of the courts of the | 
Alhambra, by Mr. Jones ; and a fourth will exhibit a Pom¬ 
peian house fully restored. In one of the smaller transepts 
there will be Egyptian antiquities, casts from the celebrated ! 
reliefs, illustrative of the trades of Egypt, and from the \ 
most noted statues—all coloured exactly like the originals, 
and so disposed as not to be a mere dead collection of indivi- | 
dual objects, but a living reproduction of Egyptian manners J 
and things. In another part there will be presented a I 
Nineveh palace. Steps have been already taken to procure 
collections of sculpture, of architecture, and of ornaments, 
illustrating the progress of those arts from their commence¬ 
ment to the present time. The sculptures will include the 
finest works of tho great European galleries and of the 
modern schools. Many of the latter—the compositions, 
