THE COTTAGE GABDENEB, 
19 
April 10.] 
dealer is to be admitted, and the proposed rules have 
been sent to one party whose opinion is considered 
weighty, if not decisive. It is far from a London 
affair, and originates in the north. 
Complaints are made by several growers of certain nursery¬ 
men monopolizing everything, and giving others no chance. 
It must, however, be admitted, that some of even the greatest 
buyers, if they do pick up a good thing, very considerately 
buy the good-for-nothing also. Those who have only one 
flower, and that a good one, are to be envied. 
NEW PLANTS. 
THEIR PORTRAITS AND BIOGRAPHIES. 
Dark yellow Cinquefoil (Potentilla ochreata), Paxtons 
Flower Garden , i., 143. The name of this extensive 
genus is a diminitive of potens, powerful, alluding to a 
supposed fever-subduing quality inherent in some of the 
wild species, and particularly in Potentilla rep tans. 
The name originated with the great Limneus; but other 
genera have been founded by Tournefort and other 
I botanists out of some of the species of Potentilla, which 
now stand as synonymes to it. 
The Potentilla heads a group of very natural genera 
belonging to the Roseworts (Bosaceae), of which the 
Strawberry is the next best known instance to most of 
our readers. In the Linmean classification the Poten- 
tillas are found in the twelfth class Icosandria, and its 
third order Trigynia. 
Potentilla ocherata is a dwarf, hairy, hardy bush, 
which flowered last September in the Dublin Botanic 
Gardens at Glasnevin. It is a native of the Himalaya 
Mountains, where it was found near Sermore by Captain 
Gerard. The leaflets are partly placed together like the 
fingers of the human hand, and partly arranged like 
| those of the Labernum (pinnate); they are grey, oblong, 
rolled back at the edge, wrinkled, and whitish and hairy 
beneath; some are two-lohed. The flowers are dark 
yellow, at the ends of the slender spreading branches, 
very short stalked, calyxed, each sepal or division of 
which is yellow inside; the petals are circular. 
Dr. Lindley gives the following good distinctive cha¬ 
racters of the truly shrubby Potentils :— 
Flowers yellow. Potentilla fruticosa (Shrubby P.). 
Bracts five, narrow, smooth on the keel, longer than 
the sepals. Leaflets five, narrow spear-lieaded. Poten¬ 
tilla arbuscula (Bushy P.). Bracts ten, as long as the 
sepals. Potentilla ochreata (Dark yellow P.). Bracts 
five, rough on the keel, long as the sepals; leaflets 
oblong, 5 to 9, much wrinkled beneath. 
Elowers white. Potentilla Salesovii (Salesoff’s P.). 
! An erect bush; leaves hoary beneath, and saw edged. 
Potentilla glabra (Smooth P.). Bush half-trailing ; leaves 
smooth, and entire edged. 
Of Roseworts it may be observed, that no deleterious 
quality has yet been detected in any of them. For the 
decoration of the long “ herbaceous borders” peculiar to the 
kitchen garden of the last century, a few of the wild poten- 
tillas might have been seen, chiefly small herbs from 
Siberia and Switzerland, and in those days no flower-border 
was thought complete without the only two shrubby or 
woody species known in the genus, Potentilla floribunda and 
fruticosa. About six or seven-and-twenty years back, a few 
potentillas, from the mountain ranges of Nepaul, in the East 
Indies, were introduced to our gardens, such as formosa, 
splendens, atrosanguinea; particularly the latter. The great 
demand for these “ new potentillas” caused a greater atten¬ 
tion being paid to the rearing of seedlings from them by the 
trade, and in the short space of four years, whether by 
accident or some natural process, atrosanguinea “ broke ” 
into a crimson scarlet seedling, called Russelliana, after 
Mr. Russell, who, also, originated the fine spotted crimson 
Rhododendron Russelliana. From this fortunate circum¬ 
stance may be traced the biographies of “ the trade’s” if 
not of “the florists’” potentillas, which have increased in 
numbers so much that the older kinds are now all but 
forgotten, and the new race have recently been admitted 
into the good graces of Mr. Glenny, the great authority 
in our country for all and everything which delights a 
florist. The profound mysteries of the man of shapes and 
circles are but play things in tbe hands of Mr. Glenny, and, 
in accepting the Potentillas under his guardianship, he has 
launched forth his whole energy, in a playful style showing 
up the best of the new seedlings, the surer ones to obtain 
still more progress from the soil they do best in, and all 
the “properties” which he thinks requisite for a “man of 
taste” to recognise or fraternise in these sprightly flowers, and 
other things which we do not pretend to understand; but 
the whole may be seen in the last October number of the 
Gardeners' Magazine of Botany. B. J. 
THE ERUIT-GARDEN. 
Insects. —So surely as returns the spring, so surely 
return those myriads of pests of the garden, known as 
the green fly, the red spider, the American blight, &c. 
These three may be said to be tbe chief enemies of tbe 
fruit-cultivator; many others there are, but bis attention 
must at all times be firmly fixed on these. 
Fb'stof all as to the Peach and Nectarine. No sooner 
does the young wood-bud unfold, than the Aphis is sure 
to appear; at least, we cannot remember an exception. 
Indeed, in most cases, they are keenly at work before a 
leaf can be fairly seen; and great is the devastation 
they most frequently commit before the cultivator is 
aware. And we are sorry to be compelled to aver, that 
one half of our practical gardeners suffer themselves to 
be caught napping on this very point. By far- too many 
wait until the ravages are manifest before they assign 
any importance to the little rascals, but of all the gar¬ 
dening follies this is one of the greatest; the mischief 
committed by the time their ravages are fairly per¬ 
ceptible is enormous, and we had almost said irre¬ 
mediable. No wonder that so many huge peach-trees 
are still to be met with, even in gardens of high pre¬ 
tensions, with their foliage in detached groups, or with 
merely a tuft of leaves and fruit at their extremities. 
Now it is somewhat singular, that the Aphis always 
seems to attack most severely the lower parts of the tree, 
or rather those back shoots which we have, in our prun¬ 
ing and disbudding articles, characterized as a nursery 
from which the fabric of the tree may be repaired. It 
is not veiy plain why this should be the case (unless it 
be that such are generally more snugly situated and 
sheltered), but so it is, and the loss of these as surely 
lays the foundation for naked and barren limbs in suc¬ 
cessive years. 
