300 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION.— August 10, 1850. 
mens of the rare Graphipliora ditrapezium, taken in the 
preceding month at Blandford, Dorsetshire. 
Mr. Douglas stated that he had observed, at sunset, 
on a recent occasion, considerable numbers of a species 
of Coleopliora on the wing, a circumstance of great rarity, 
as the species are generally very sedentary, and probably 
owing to some peculiar state of the weather or atmo¬ 
sphere. 
Mr. G. R. Waterhouse exhibited a number of in¬ 
teresting minute Coleoptera from the New Forest, in¬ 
cluding five species of Myrmidonia, all taken in the 
nests of black Ants. Also, Oxypoda vittata, in the 
same situation, and the beautiful Orchesia fasciata, 
which had been reared from the larva. 
Mr. Wollaston also exhibited a number of rare small 
Coleoptera, from Leicestershire, including Scraptia 
fusca, hitherto known as British by a single individual, 
and a remarkable monstrosity occurring in a species of 
Galerucidce, having the left antennae furnished with 
three distinct articulated branches. 
A paper by Mr. Newman was read on the effect pro¬ 
duced on insects by the fumas arising from bruised 
Laurel leaves, and the employment of this material as a 
simple and very efficacious means of killing insects 
for the cabinet has been latterly extended with success 
to the destruction of obnoxious species in greenhouses 
and other horticultural erections, the gas evolved from 
the leaves being as effectual for this purpose as chloro¬ 
form itself. It was admitted, however, that its effects 
were less satisfactory with some species than others; 
pounding the leaves, also, was not found to be nearly so 
efficacious for the collector’s purposes, after the first day, 
as the leaves simply cut into small bits, the gas being 
evolved more continuously aud for a larger period by 
the latter mode, although the more rapid evolution of 
the gas was the more necessary for practical horticul¬ 
tural objects. 
WELLINGTON ROAD NURSERY. 
(Continued from page 340.) 
Petunias. —There is no class of flowers more easily 
ruined by the superior baudliug of the operative florist 
than the Petunia. The herbaceous Calceolarias held 
out under the ordeal much longer; but they are thrown 
overboard now by the very people who ruined them, 
the secretary of the Horticultural Society having washed 
his hands of them last spring in Mr. Rendle’s “ Price 
! Current.” But the Petunia aud herbaceous Calceolaria 
| being of exactly the same age under cultivation, the 
! first in Ireland in 1831, and the latter in Scotland the 
i same season—I saw the first coloured Petunia which 
opened in England in a stove at Lower Broughton, a 
I little out of Manchester, and the first Calceolaria ditto 
; in Young’s Nursery,'at Epsom, in May, 1832—I say, 
I how is it that the one should yield up before the other? 
! The reason is that the Calceolaria "took” the fancy at 
once; while few thought of “improving” the Petunia 
for some years after its introduction. When I began 
flower-gardening in .1810 there was not a good bedding 
Petunia in England, and I made a model Petunia for 
the flower-beds, at which the florists turned up their 
noses, but which has stood, all over Europe, as the model 
Petunia to this day, with only two improvements by 
uncrossed seeds : the first is called Marquis de la Ferte, 
and is the same as Shruhlaiid Hose, the model plant, 
with more white in the eye, the rose grouud being the 
same as in the model ; the second is the Countess of 
Ellesmere, and is an improvement in the eye, in the 
ground colour, in the substance, aud in the vigour of 
the plant. The Countess of Ellesmere is worth all the 
Petunias of the florists ten times over, and is, without 
j exception, now the best bedding plant of the kind on 
the face of the earth. There is a whole bed of it here 
j more than twenty yards long, and I cannot be mistaken 
in my own model. All the striped Petunias which I 
mentioned from Mr. Salter’s Versailles Nursery were 
1 here likewise, and also in the open ground. They are 
1 certainly very pretty ornaments as long as they retain 
their stripes and markings. Some of the best of them 
[ are Hermione, Docteur Andry, Gloire de France, E Abbe 
Claude, Striata formosissima, Majestic, and many more 
of them ; but the best way to get them is to order so 
many kinds, and leave the selection to the dealer, who 
must know more of them than a thousand gardeners on 
a flying visit. 
Alstromerias. —Another of the long beds was crowded 
with Van IToutte’s seedling Alstromerias, as fine in 
bloom as ever they were or could be in Belgium. I 
have not seen such a bed since I left off growing them 
that way in 1836, when I had the most unique bed of 
them in England; the different sorts in circles, in a 
circular bed, and the bed edged with the twining Bomaria 
acutifolia, only a foot high, being trained on sticks round 
and round. Deep, rich, sandy soil, and plenty of very 
rotten dung, are all they want; and I should say this 
was the best bed of them that ever was seen in this 
country. Next October aud November is the time to 
buy them in dry roots, and to plant them at once full 
six inches deep, and a good mulching over them while 
the frost lasts. By-the-by, is it not a species of cruelty 
to animals to tease me with private letters about the 
Cocoa-nut mulching stuff' after telling all I knew about 
it? The man in the moon knows just as much about it 
as I do beyond what I stated. The mills are just out 
ofKingston, and there must be a “ manager.” Write to 
him; or buy a bed of Alstromerias from this Nursery, 
aud mulch it with the nut refuse from Kingston. 
Phloxes. —There is a radical reform urgently wanted 
among the new seedling Phloxes. There are above one 
hundred names under Phlox which might very easily 
be dispensed with, and I shall do the State service, and 
give a vast impulse to the trade in fancy Phloxes, if 
1 can put down one hundred of them at one rap. We 
all know that Omniflora compacta is the best bedder of 
I all the new Phloxes that have been tried previous to the 
present season; it is the first I noted dowu in this 
j Nursery. The next best was Osiris, which is a half- 
dwarf land, of good, stout habit, and a splendid white 
flower of great substance, with a blush round the eye, 
aud the whole limb, or spreading part of the flower, dies 
off into a blush shade ; and Countess of Home, a Scotch 
seedling by Downy and Laird, a light blush flower of 
great substance, and with a dark eye. These three are 
the best, and the only three out of threescore of the 
same cast which I would admit into the Experimental. 
The coloured ones require more time and consideration, 
and I must pass them to-day, and only mention Crite¬ 
rion, a decided cross, as it would appear, between the 
herbaceous and the Drummondi sections. Criterion is a 
very nice striped one. 
Delphinium. —They have a new Delphinium in the 
way of Hendersonii, but of a more dwarf habit, and 
larger flowers; it is called Formosum, and with Hender- 
sonii you could see its distinctness from any part of the 
grounds. Those require the richest soil, and the shoots 
to be cut back to one-half their length as soon as they 
are nearly out of bloom. .Do not stop till the last 
