70 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
April 22. 
THE BRITISH MOSSES. 
Now that our beautiful Ferns are being so much cultivated, 
I think their neighbours, the British Mosses, ought not to 
be overlooked. Though some of them are very minute, 
there is a charm thrown over many a sunny corner of this 
flowery earth by these humble, yet exquisitely beautiful, 
tenants of the glade. Were it not for the Mosses we should 
lose much of the pleasure of our woodland rambles. They 
seem inseparably connected with the Violet and Primrose— 
of them the robin builds her nest; and we have, ourselves, 
often in the broiling summer sun luxuriously reposed upon 
a bed of moss. They cling to the trunks of trees, making 
them to observing eyes not only interesting, but very beau¬ 
tiful, hiding the wounds that time has made ; and then 
they creep over the thatched habitations of the poor, like 
true Britons, not neglecting the humble. 
Altogether they form a distinguishing feature in English 
pastoral scenes. How we are struck when we come un¬ 
expectedly upon some ancient village, with its decaying 
outhouses and tenements! We hear the Sabbath bells 
calling the villagers to prayers: the mossy stream, whose 
silver waters leap from some woodland height, commingles 
its notes with the wild bird’s song; bright, cheering, and 
dewy, it seems a scene where angels might walk untarnished. 
We wander on delighted. We cull the Primrose and Violet, 
but seldom bestow a moment’s notice upon these charming 
little friends of ours. How ungrateful we are. Let us learn 
to appreciate them ; let us try to cultivate them. I, for one, 
am about to make the attempt, and shall be glad to hear of 
a successful method of growing them. 
I do not see why they should not be cultivated with 
success in a close, moist atmosphere, as well, or better (at 
least cheaper) than the exotic Lycopodiums in our stoves ; 
and by every cottager, too, who is a lover of nature. The 
cottager has not too many treats in his power. Taught 
to be humbled, he bends to privation till he sometimes ex¬ 
claims— 
“ Why was an independent wish 
E’er planted in my mind ? ** 
But when he becomes a flower lover, they soften his toil, 
and melt down his rugged feeling; he sympathises with 
nature; knowledge of her wonderful work steps in, and often, 
when his heart strings are ready to snap, he blesses his 
chains, for they have made him wise, and he can feel that 
“ knowledge is the sunlight of the soul." 
If you think it will be any advantage, you shall have my 
' humble experience on the cultivation of British Mosses as 
I proceed.—W. Elliott, Gar Abbey, Burton-on-l'rent. 
(Had poor William Gardiner still been alive, how he 
would have sympathised with our corrrespondent. We have 
I accepted the latter’s otter, for we are sure that we have many 
lovers of the Mosses among our readers, and who feel as we 
1 do that 
Those humble plants that clothe the rock 
Or green the sterile waste, 
Of no importance seem to him 
Who scannetli things in haste; 
But these the first foundation lay 
Of vegetative power, 
And but for these, we ne’er might have 
A green tree nor a flower.) 
COAL TAR FATAL TO WOODLICE, TOADS, 
AND PLANTS. 
I send you a note of an experiment tried to kill woodlice 
in ti Cucumber-frame, which acted fatally both to the vermin 
and to the plants. I first of all got, some coal-tar and boiled 
a certain quantity, and I then put a little around each 
bed against, the flue, which is heated by manure. I went 
the next morning to see what was the result, and found 
the woodlice lying around the beds quite dead. The Cu¬ 
cumber plants looked quite healthy then, and they still 
continued so for the next day, but to my surprise, on (lie 
third day, after about one hour’s sunshine, my plants were 
laid flat upon the surface of the soil. I have to regret, also, 
the loss of two poor toads, which were a great help to me. 
They were completely wasted to skeletons from the effect of 
the tar, and this determines me never to try an experiment j 
of the sort again. 
I shall he glad if you can inform me the reason of the 
tar killing the plants, and how it acts on them. Last year 
1 found that the woodlice were eating my Melons when 
i nearly ready for table, against which pillage I have a good 
I remedy, by turning a pot upside down—placing a square 
of glass on the pot, and the fruit on the glass, which j 
I will prevent them from getting to the fruit, and I now think 
this plan is simple and good. —Henry Thomas, Gardener, , 
Karnes House, Wakefield. 
(Coal tar gives off fumes of ammonia, sulphureted hydro- I 
gen, and creosote, all three of which, in excess, are fatal to 
animal and vegetable life. If the Melon is cut from the 
| stem of the plant, the inverted flower pot and sheet of glass j 
would be an effectual balk to the woodlouse, and so would 
the pot placed in a pan of water. If the Melon is not cut j 
from the plant, the insect might crawl up the stem.) 
NEW PLANTS. 
Aralia tapyrifera ( Rice-paper Plant). 
It is one of the Natural Order of Ivy worts (Araleacesc), I 
and of the Linncean Pentandria Penluyynia. 
“ It is to the kindness of the talented Governor of Hong- j 
| kong, Sir John Bowring, and his son, J. C. Bowring, Esq., ] 
that we owe a more intimate acquaintance with the plant j 
' itself, and finally to the possession of the living and 
flowering plant. Our largest specimen, about five feet high, 
j placed in a damp stove, produced its tine panicles of 
blossoms in December, 1855; but, probably owing to the 
unfavourable season of the year, the flowers dropped oft, 
almost as fast as they were developed, and bore no fruit. 
From dried specimens that had flowered at Hongkong in 
the Governor’s garden, we can make up the deficiency as 
far as the immature fruit is concerned. 
“ It seems to be a native exclusively of the Island of 
Formosa; and no botanist has ever seen the. plant in its 
native locality. By the untiring exertions of Sir John 
Bowring he induced the Chine, e traders to procure living 
plants, when on their voyage to that island for the cargo of 
stems to make their paper. 
“ 1If.scr. Plant unarmed, five to seven feet high. Stem branching 
above, and from two to three, or at most four inches in diameter, forming j 
very little wood, filled with the most exquisitely white pith, of which the 
famous “ Rive-paper ” of China is made. Young leaves, and branches, 
and whole intlorescence entirely covered with copious, stellated, more or 
less thick and deciduous down ; upper surlace of the foliage at length 
glabrous. Fully grown leaves sometimes a foot long, cordate, five to j 
seven-lobed ; lobes acute, serrated, sinus very deep ; texture soft and 
rather flaccid. Petiules very long, terete, furnished at the base with two, 
long (two inches in length), soft, subulate, erect stipules. Panicles from 
the extremity of the stem or branches and rising above them, then 
nodding, one to three feet long ; branches all witli subulate bracts , as 
well as the terminal and sessile, capitate umbels, which are arranged 
alternately on the ultimate branches. Flowers on short pedicels, poly¬ 
gamous, tetramerous. Ovary turbinate, woolly : margin of the calyx 
obsolete. Petals four, ovate, concave, acute, valvatc, woolly on the out- 
j side. Stamens four, alternate with the petals, incurved ; anthers oval, , 
two-celled, rather large. Styles two, at first erect and slightly incurved, ; 
at length (in fruit) divaricated. Stigma small, capitate. The stylo- 
I podium is depressed and surrounded by an elevated, waved, fleshy ring. 
Fruit in the dry state nearly black, scarcely matnre, subglobose, obscurely 
didymous, laterally, but moderately, compressed, smooth, crowned with 
the fleshy ring just mentioned, and the divaricating styles.” 
—Botanical Magazine. 
< Cymbidium chloranthum ( Yeltow-yreen Cgmbidium). 
A stove Orchid from Nepaul, introduced by Messrs. Lod- 
diges. Blooms in May.— Ibid. t. 41)07. 
Tuitdanthus calyttratus ( Extinguisher-shaped Tupidan- 
thus.) r 
Natural Order. Ivyworts (Araliacete). Linn. Polyandria 
Moiwgyitia. Found by Drs. Hooker and Thomson in damp 
forests, at the foot of the Kliasia Mountains, in Eastern 
Bengal. It is a gigantic climber. Before the flowers open 
they resemble mallets, whence is derived the generic name. 
—Ibid. t. 4008. 
Cattleya bicolor ( Two-coloured Catlleya). 
The two colours of this Orchid's flowers are rosy-purple 
and pink. It is a native of Bon Jesus de Bauanal, in 
Brazil. It blooms in October.— Ibid. t. 4000. 
