June 8. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
100 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
1 M 
D 
1) 
W 
8 
Tn 
y 
F 
10 
S 
11 
Sun 
12 
M 
13 
To 
14 
w 
JUNE 8—14, 1854. 
Carabus arvensis. 
Calosoma sycophants 
Calosoma inquisitor. 
Harpalus aulicu 3 . 
Harpalus Germanua. 
Weather near London in 
Barometer. Thermo. Wind. 
1853. 
Rain in 
Inches. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
It. Sc S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
af. Sun. 
Day ol 
Year. 
30.078—30.014 
80—54 
S.W. 
02 
40 a 3 
11 a 8 
2 14 
13 
1 
21 
159 
; 30.047—29 973 
69—50 
s.w. 
01 
46 
12 
2 36 
14 
l 
10 
160 
1 *29-949—29.813 
83—57 
S.E. 
02 
45 
13 
rises. 
© 
0 
58 
161 
' 29.743—29.690 
80—53 
E. 
1 
45 
14 
9 a 31 
16 
0 
46 
162 
29.728—29.707 
65—51 
W. 
2 
45 
14 
10 36 
17 
0 
34 
163 
29.753—29.702 
55—51 
w. 
77 
44 
15 
1 1 21 
18 
0 
164 
29.937—29.881 
71—48 
s. 
36 
44 
15 
11 54 
19 
0 
10 
165 
Mbteorology of the Week.—-A t Chiswick, from observations during the last twenty-seven years, the average hi 
Sl r ‘- n‘ ese &a r are ^‘■respectnely. The greatest heat, 90°, occurred on the 12th in 1842 ; and thelo 
8 th tn 1838. During the period 112 days were fine, and on 77 rain fell. 
ghest and lowest tem- 
lowest cold, 35°, on the 
BRITISH WILD FLOWERS 
(Continued from page 51.) 
DENTARIA.—CORALWOIIT. 
Generic Character. —Calyx equal at the base, erect; 
leaves oblong-egg-shaped, converging lengthwise, blunt, 
deciduous. Petals reversed-egg-shaped, blunt, horizontal, 
with erect claws shorter than the calyx. Filaments awl- 
shaped, simple, distinct. Anthers arrow - shaped, erect. 
Garmon oblong. Style short and thick. Stigma obtuse, 
scarcely notched. Pod stalkless, lanceolate, compressed 
laterally, tapering upwards; valves flat, without ribs, 
narrower than the partition, bursting elastically from the 
base, and mostly curling back. Seeds egg-shaped, not 
bordered, inserted alternately in a single row ; their stalks 
flattened and winged; cotyledons accumbent, rather thick. 
Dentaria bulbifera : Bulb bearing Coralwort, or Tooth- 
wort. 
Description .—Tt is a perennial. Root whitish, toothed, 
creeping horizontally, branched and sub-divided. Stems 
from the terminal buds of the preceding year, solitary, 
erect, leafy, from one-and-a-half to two feet high. Leaves 
alternate, bright green; several of the lowermost pinnate, 
of five leaflets; others three-leafleted; upper ones simple; 
all lanceolate, acute, variously saw-toothed, accompanied 
for the most part with egg-shaped, dark purple, scaly bulbs, 
produced between the leaf-stalk and the stem, by which 
bulbs the plant is propagated. Flowers in clusters, large 
and handsome, without smell, hardly ever perfecting pods 
or seed, the bulbs furnishing an ample increase. Petals 
purple. There is a gland between each shorter stamen and 
the calyx, and a smaller gland, partly cut in the middle, 
between the larger stamens and the calgx. Sometimes this 
smaller gland is cleft in three, and the middle portion the 
largest. 
Time of flowering .—April and May. 
Places where found .—It is a rare plant, and occurs only in 
moist, shaded places. 
History .—The genus received its name from this species 
having a toothed root, the Latin name for a tooth being 
Dens. In the days when a belief in signatures prevailed in 
medicine; that is, w'hen everything which in form re¬ 
sembled a part of the human body was believed to possess 
curative powers for the diseases of that part, the root of 
Dentaria was thought specific in cases of tooth-ache. 
Gerarde was not aware that it is a native of England, but 
says, this kind “I have in my garden. They may be called 
in English Toothed-Violets, or Coral-worts." Parkinson 
seems to have been the first to ascertain that it is one of our 
native plants. He says—“ It has been found in our land 
at Mayfield, in Sussex, in a wood called Highreede, and in 
another wood there, called Foxholes, both of them be¬ 
longing to one Mr. Stephen Parkhurst at the writing 
hereof.”— (Smith. Martyn. Gerarde. Parkinson.) 
Wa think the just definition of a Weed is—a plant 
growing in a wrong place; and, if so, then, to the 
i Marine Algce, or Fuci, Sea -weeds is a misleading and 
unjust misnomer. This will have been apparent to our 
readers from much that has been said relative to these 
plants in the series of papers now about concluding in 
our columns; but they have not exhausted the subject. 
Let us take for our chief example, not a solitary one, 
that which is almost the commonest of Fuci—the Bladder 
Wrack (Fucus vesiculosus), and we find that he who was 
most intimate with it, Dr. Lightfoot, thus speaks of it 
in his Flora Scotica :— 
“ It is well known to be an excellent manure for land, 
I to which purpose it is often applied in the maritime 
parts of Scotlaud and other countries. In the islands of 
Jura and Skye it frequently serves as a winter food for 
cattle, which regularly come down to the shores at the 
. recess of the tides to seek for it. And, sometimes, even 
the stags have been observed, after a storm, to descend 
from the mountains to the sea-sides, to feed upon this 
plant. Liuna3us informs us, that the inhabitants ol 
Gothland, in Sweden, boil this Fucus in water, and, i 
mixing therewith a little coarse meal or flour, feed their | 
hogs with it; for which reason they call the plant, 
Sweiutang. And in Scania, he says, the poor people ! 
cover their cottages with it, and sometimes use it for 
fuel. Iu Jura, and some other of the Hebrides, the 
inhabitants dry their cheeses without salt, by covering I 
Nr. COXOVII., Vol. XII. 
