August 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
237 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
M 
n 
w 
D 
AUGUST 9—15, 1849. 
Plants dedicated to 
each day. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon R. 
and Sets. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
bef. Sun. 
Day of 
Year. 
9 
Th 
Linnet’s song ceases. 
Common Ragwort. 
38 a. 4 
33 a. 7 
10 
1 
21 
5 
13 
221 
10 
F 
St. Lawrence. Silver-spotted skipperbutter- 
Common Balsam. 
39 
31 
10 
30 
22 
5 
4 
222 
11 
S 
Dog days end. [congregate. 
China Aster. 
41 
29 
11 
3 
G 
4 
55 
223 
12 
Sun 
10 S. aft. Trin. Swallows and Martins 
Tall marsh Sowthistle. 
42 
27 
11 
42 
24 
4 
46 
224 
13 
M 
Q, Dowager b. 1792. 2 nd brood of Martins 
Marsh Groundsel. 
44 
25 
morn. 
25 
4 
35 
225 
14 
Tu 
Goldfinch’s song ceases. [fl ed s eJ> 
Graceful Zinnia. 
46 
23 
0 
30 
26 
4 
25 
226 
15 
W 
Assum. B.V.M. Large bile. Staphyline seen. 
Virgin’s Bower. 
47 
21 
1 
26 
27 
4 
13 
227 
St. Lawrence was a native of Spain, and is venerated by its 
people as their guardian saint. He was martyred at Rome in the 
time of Valerian, for distributing the treasure of the church among 
the poor, and thus disappointing the cupidity of the Roman prefect, 
lie died on a gridiron placed over a slow fire, on this day, a.d. 258. 
The battle of St. Quintin was fought on this anniversary in the year 
1557, and as it terminated in favour of the Spaniards, their sovereign, 
king Phillip, in conformity with a vow he had made, built a church, a 
monastery, and a palace, all commemorative of St. Lawrence. The 
palace—the far-famed Escurial, near Madrid—is built in the form of 
a gridiron, and all the chief ornaments, in some mode, refer to the 
same instrument of torture. Its erection occupied twenty-four years, 
at an expenditure of six millions sterling. 
Assumption of the Virgin Mary. —This is a very distinguished 
festival of the Roman Catholic Church, instituted in 813 in com¬ 
memoration of what its members believe, viz., the assuming, or 
taking up, into heaven of the body of the mother of our Saviour 
after her decease. It was customary in the same church to implore 
a blessing, at this harvest period, upon herbs, plants, roots, and 
fruits. 
Phenomena of the Season. —We have followed the entire 
process of vegetation, from the first germination of the seed, through 
the growth of the plant springing from it, till this has itself ripened 
its fruit; but we are reminded, by a flight of thistle-down Hying 
across our study window, that we have left unnoticed the care taken 
by their Creator to provide for the dispersion of the ripe seed, and 
the consequent preservation and healthy growth of each species. 
This is a subject so full of interest that we shall devote a separate 
note to each mode of dispersion, beginning with that which very 
early engaged the notice even of poets—flight before the winds. 
“ Nature nought disdains : thoughtful to feed 
Her lowest sons, and clothe the coming year, 
From field to field the feather’d seeds she wings.” 
Nor must we forget in this thought upon “the wisdom of God 
Insects. —At the close of last and 
during the whole of the present month, 
the Black-arch moth, the male of 
which is represented in our drawing, 
may be found, during the day-time, 
with closed wings upon the trunks of 
oaks and other trees. It is the Psibura 
monacha of some entomologists, and 
the Botnhyx or Liparis monacha of 
others. The males are smaller than 
the females, measuring about one and 
a half-inch across the opened fore¬ 
wings, whilst the females usually mea¬ 
sure an inch more. The colour of the 
moth is a creamy white, spotted and 
streaked with black, in the manner 
here shewn. The hind-wings are 
dusky. The antennse are black, and 
the body dusky, tinged above with 
pink. The caterpillar is ashy brown, 
with tufts of reddish hair on the back, 
and a black, heart-shaped, spot on the second segment of its body. 
It probably varies in colour according to the plant on which it has 
fed, for it is by no means particular in its nourishment. It feeds 
on the leaves of the Scotch fir, bramble, birch, apple, oak, elm, 
aspen, lime, and willow. The caterpillars appear in June and July. 
They have never appeared very abundant in this country, but 
in Piussia and France, at the end of the last century, they did so 
much injury that M. Beckstein says that it “would not be replaced 
in a hundred years.” In 1829 , at Stettin, four hundred acres of 
pines, oaks, birches, and beeches, were entirely stript of their leaves 
by them. 
manifested in the creation,” that these seeds are ripe at an equinoc¬ 
tial period of the year, when the strength and prevalence of winds 
render them more than ordinarily efficient agents in their diffusion. 
Some seeds, such as those of the dandelion, salsafv, blue-bottle, 
succory, groundsel, and thistle, are furnished with a plume-like 
appendage, very varying in its curious structure, called by botanists 
the pappus, but all of a parasol or shuttlecock form, and so all pro¬ 
motive of the floating of the seed upon the air. How effectual this 
is for the intended purpose our eyes have sufficient evidence every 
year, but of the efficacy of the winds in this respect we have still 
further evidence in the facts that M. Dccandolle found two lichens 
on the south-west coast of France—lichens natives of Jamaica—which 
he believed to have been brought to where he discovered them by the 
south-west winds. A still more striking example is afforded by the 
Canadian flea-bane ( Erigeron canadensis), which, within a century 
after its introduction from North America, spread itself over France, 
England, Holland, Germany, Italy, and Sicily. The long downy awn of 
the feather grass ( Stipa pennuta) is peculiarly constructed not only for 
conveying the seed to a distance, but also for sowing it. This awn is 
barbed, and, catching hold of any object, twists round and round 
until it conveys the seed not only down to the earth but into it, and 
then breaking off leaves it to vegetate. Other seeds have appen¬ 
dages of another form, but still calculated to bear them to a distance 
from the parent plant. Thus, the seeds of the maple have mem¬ 
branes attached to them resembling the wings of a fly ; those of the 
elm have a similar membrane encircling them ; and those of the 
tulip tree ( Liriodendron tulipifera ), and of some of the pine tribe, 
are similarly winged. We might easily multiply such examples, but 
we will pass on to notice that some seeds are so minute and specifi¬ 
cally light, that, without any appendages, they float upon the air, 
and are easily conveyed away to regions very distant from that where 
the parent is resident. Instances of these are common in ferns, 
mosses, and fungi, of which the puff ball {Lycoperdon pratense) is a 
familiar instance. The seeds of these are so minute that Ray, one 
of the most careful of nature’s observers, estimates that a single 
stalk of spleenwort ( Asplenium ) yields a million annually. 
1841. 
1842. 
1843. 
1844. 
1845. 
1846. 
1847. 
1848. 
9 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Fine, 
Rain. 
Fine. 
Showery. 
Stormy. 
Highest 
& lowest 
70°—49° 
86 °—55° 
82°—57° 
O 
Tf* 
1 
O 
68°—52° 
71 °—58° 
66 °—44° 
69 °— 40° 
temp. 
10 
Fine. 
Stormv. 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Rain. 
Fine. 
Showery. 
Stormy. 
68 °—55° 
93°—60° 
O 
-f 
1 
o 
CO 
to 
76 °—41° 
68 ° — 53° 
71°—55° 
65°—48° 
74°—43° 
n 
Rain. 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Stormy. 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Cloudy. 
6 s°—46° 
71°—47° 
72 °— 46 ° 
73° —54° 
70°— 53° 
73°—57° 
790 — 61 ° 
70 °—52° 
12 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Rain. 
Cloudy. 
Showery. 
Fine. 
Cloudy. 
65°—41° 
78°—55° 
77° 47° 
70°—54° 
68 °—49° 
75°—51° 
86 ° — 58° 
73°—54° 
13 
Cloudy. 
Cloudy. 
Fine. 
Rain. 
Showery. 
Rain. 
Fine. 
Cloudy. 
70 °—54° 
73°—56° 
78 °— 60 ° 
65° — 51° 
66°—50° 
66 °—44° 
81°—49° 
66 °—53° 
14 
Rain. 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Rain. 
Cloudy. 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Rain. 
72°—54° 
85°—48° 
79°—59° 
65°—49° 
62 °—52° 
77°— 49° 
79°—52° 
6 o°—53° 
15 
Fine. 
Fine. 
Stormy. 
Showery. 
Cloudy. 
Showery. 
Cloudy. 
Cloudy. 
70°—50° 
92°—52° 
82 °— 60 ° 
68 °—47° 
62° — 44° 
79°—50° 
80°—56° 
68 °—55° 
It is quite needless for us to reiterate what may be 
found urged by us in favour of “ cottage allotments” 
from the first page of our first number down to the 
last number we issued to our readers; but we have 
received such testimony of the benefits arising from 
“ The Seacombe Gardens Allotment Society,” and 
of the spirited way in which the allotments are cul¬ 
tivated, tliat we are induced to publish its rules, and 
a letter relative to the subject from Mr. W. Hen¬ 
derson, the very intelligent nurseryman of Oxton, 
No. XLV., Vol. II. 
