December 17, 1887. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
245 
in the comeliness that ensues upon change of form and 
colour ; and to complete the pleasant list of virtues and 
good qualities, there is the longevity, increasing with 
age, and the gracious fertility. The potential life of 
an Apple tree is quite 150 years. Many of the best 
Apples shown at the great Apple Congress at Chiswick 
in 1883 came from trees a full century old, and com¬ 
paratively few were from trees less than 50 years of 
age.” 
What is the history of the Apple ? and how came we 
to possess it ? The Apple figures frequently in myth 
and fable. The Persians, from whom, doubtless, a 
great deal of the Jewish mythology was obtained, had 
their “heaven-like gardens.” The Greeks had their 
gardens of the golden Apples. 
The Hesperides were three celebrated nymphs, 
daughters of Hesperus. They were appointed to guard 
the golden Apples which Juno gave to Jupiter on the 
day of their nuptials, but which, alas ! were full of 
ashes. To obtain some of the Apples, Hercules repaired 
to the garden, and though injured in his heel he 
obtained three. Not Apples to be eaten were these in 
this famous fable ; or in that of Hippomenes and 
Atalanta, where the maiden loses the race through 
stopping to pick up from the ground the too seductive 
“poma aurea, ” thrown there by Hippomenes, though 
she gained him for a husband. 
In the Old Testament we read on six occasions 
of Apples and Apple-trees, but, in the opinion 
of students, “ not one of the Scripture references 
carries allusion to the Apple of the English orchards. 
That the ancient Hebrews ever saw, or knew anything 
of Apples of any kinds is in the highest degree very 
improbable. The Hebrew word employed simply 
denotes something fragrant. The Quince, the Citron, 
and the Apricot have all, in turn, been suggested as the 
fruit meant.” It is certain that not only is the Apple 
mystical above all the fruits of the earth, but it is the 
supreme fruit. To it has been given the Latin name 
Pomona, which is the generic name of fruit, just as 
Pomona is the goddess of all the fruit trees. 
There appears to exist considerable diversity of 
opinion as to whether the Apple was originally intro¬ 
duced to this country, or has existed from time 
immemorial as an indigenous tree. Mr. Loudon 
thought it was brought to this country by the Romans, 
to whom twenty-two varieties were known in Pliny’s 
time. Dr. Hogg thinks it to be an indigenous tree— 
at all events, familiar to the ancient Britons. Others 
ascribe its introduction to the Normans. That the 
Apple was known before the Norman Conquest there 
are numerous instances to prove. Mr. R. Folkard, in 
his delightful book on Plant Lore, informs us that 
“the Druids highly reverenced the Apple tree, partly 
on account of its fruit, but chiefly because they believed 
that the Mistletoe thrived on it and on the Oak only. 
In consequence of its reputed sanctity, therefore, the 
Apple was largely cultivated by the early Britons ; and 
Glastonbury was known as the ‘ Apple Orchard ’ from 
the quantity of fruit grown there previous to the Roman 
invasion. The Druids were wont to cut their divining- 
rods from the Apple tree.” 
The Saxons highly prized the Apple, and in many 
towns established a separate market for the fruit. The 
following sentence from their coronation Benediction 
shows with what importance it was regarded :—“ May 
the Almighty bless thee with the blessing of heaven 
above, and the mountains and the valleys, with the 
blessing of the deep below, with the blessing of Grapes 
and Apples. Bless, 0 Lord, the courage of this Prince, 
and prosper the work of his hands ; and by Thy 
blessing may this land be filled with Apples, with the 
fruit and dew of heaven, from the top of the ancient 
mountains, from the Apples of the eternal hills, from 
the fruits of the earth and its fulness.” It is also 
mentioned by William of Malmesbury in 973, who 
says that King Edgar lay some time under the shade 
of a wild Apple tree while hunting. 
“The names of various old towns and villages in 
England which commemorate early Apple culture, such 
as Applethwaite, Applegarth, Appleby, Appledurcombe, 
date, according to Isaac Taylor, from times anterior to 
the Conquest. ‘Appleton,’ the family surname, began 
just after it. In 1066, among the followers of William 
there was a lady of the name of Mabilia. She fixed 
her residence in Kent, as one of the many places where 
Apples, it would seem, were already plentiful, and 
commending herself to the people by her virtues, 
became known as Mabilia d’Appletone, or Mabilia of 
the Apple orchards. Her descendants, the Appletons 
of Kent and the adjoining counties, like the De 
Traffords of Lancashire, still, after 800 years, cling 
faithfully to the ancestral soil. The heraldic crest 
became an Apple-bough, with leaves and fruit, and 
continues such to the present day (L. H. Grindon).” 
( To he continued.) 
DISEASES OF ORCHIDS. 
A New Fungus—Cladosporium orchidearum. 
A week or two ago, Mr. William Elphinstone, of 
The Gardens, Shipley Hall, Derby, forwarded to the 
Editor of The Gardening World entire examples— 
including leaves, pseudo-bulbs, and roots—of two va¬ 
rieties of Calantlie in a diseased state. Mr. Elphinstone, 
in his note, stated that the same disease had attacked 
Catasetum Bungerothii. “To all appearance,” wrote 
Mr. Elphinstone, “ the disease is a fungus commencing 
on the leaves during the growing season. After com¬ 
pletely destroying the foliage it descends to the pseudo¬ 
bulbs.” In the attack on Catasetum, the latter were 
the first to show the disease. 
Mr. Elphinstone’s description was very accurate, and 
he was right in attributing the disease to fungus work. 
The diseased leaves became at length black, opaque, 
and damp, as often occurs in connection with fungus 
attacks. On holding the leaves up to the light, a 
series of irregular concentric circles and parts of circles 
could be seen within the leaf, as shown in the 
upper part of the accompanying illustration. This 
Cladosporium orchidearum. 
is a certain sign of the existence of a fungus 
growth within the leaf. On further examination 
of the leaves whilst still held before a strong 
light, the fungus growths could be distinctly seen 
within the leaves, running straight down to the 
crown of the pseudo-bulbs. A microscopic examination 
showed the interior of the leaves and the diseased parts 
of the pseudo-bulbs to be full of fungus mycelium. 
The spawn of the fungus was rapidly consuming the 
interior material of both. 
No fungus was growing on the upper surface of the 
leaves, but on the lower surface the microscope showed 
the fungus from within growing outwards through the 
stomata, or the minute openings or organs of tran¬ 
spiration. The fungus was obviously one of the 
brown-moulds known to botanists under the name of 
Cladosporium, but of unusually small size and of 
parasitic habit. The new fungus of Orchids is not 
more than one-half, one-third, or one-quarter the size 
of the commonly-known species of Cladosporium ; and 
its habit—although on a smaller scale—agrees well 
with the habit and concentric circles seen in the 
Cladosporium of Carnations—a parasitic brown mould, 
which has been extremely destructive during late years. 
The lower part of the illustration shows a tuft of 
Cladosporium orchidearum, growing through an 
organ of transpiration belonging to a leaf of the 
Calanthe. It will be seen that the supporting stems of 
the fungus are comparatively short and stumpy, and 
that each stem bears about three spores on the top, and 
sometimes are at the side lower down. The spores are 
olive-brown in colour, and are either simple (without a 
cross division) or compound, i.e., divided in two by a 
partition. Each portion of a compound spore ger¬ 
minates in the style of a simple spore. The spores 
germinate on the surface of the Orchid leaf, and the 
germ tubes enter the organs of transpiration, and feed 
on the interior substance of the leaf. Mr. Elphinstone 
says the growth on the pseudo-bulbs of the Catasetum 
succumbed to sulphur ; this is probably a correct 
observation, as the fungus, in this case, started on the 
bulbs, and would, consequently, be there superficial. 
"When the fungus makes its attack on leaves by the 
stomata, it appears to travel at once, by the interior, to 
the base of the plant, in the style of the Potato fungus. 
It is often a difficult matter to trace the course of 
a plant disease, and correctly determine the real 
criminal. It may take several days, or rather nights, 
as it is more convenient to work with the microscope at 
night ; gardeners and editors get impatient, and send 
fresh letters and telegrams and further diseased material, 
but funguses decline to be hurried and rushed. 
When the subject has at last been determined, the 
unfortunate investigator has yet to ascertain whether 
the disease is new or has been previously recorded in 
England, America, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, 
Russia, or other places, and this is really a most 
difficult piece of work, and may waste further days or 
even weeks. In none of my notes or books had I any 
record of a fungus agreeing with the one here described. 
To avoid possible error, after my own observations and 
drawings had been made, I applied to my friend, Dr. 
M. C. Cooke, of Kew, with a tracing of the fungus ; he 
kindly replied that as far as he knew no such fungus 
had hitherto been described, but that he had recently 
seen it at Kew, and intended to describe it from Kew 
examples in the next number of Grevillea, March, 1888, 
under the name of Cladosporium orchidearum. 
In conclusion I may say that the genus Cladosporium 
has been astonishingly common and destructive during 
the last few years. In some places it has totally 
destroyed the Carnation tribe and the Ornithogalum ; 
it has also completely rotted the fruit and foliage of 
Tomatos. After the Cladosporium has done its work, 
other and more common moulds appear and finish the 
operation. — Worthington G. Smith, Dunstable. 
-- 
MITRARIA COCCINEA. 
How comparatively seldom we see this old-fashioned 
greenhouse shrub grown in such a way that its natural 
habit of growth can possibly be developed ! For years 
past in most private establishments it has been the 
custom to grow it in pots in the greenhouse. Under 
these conditions it forms a close evergreen bush of a 
shrubby character, with pendent or divaricate branches, 
that is, the latter have no distinct tendency to grow 
erect, but spread and droop in all directions. Even in 
this state, when well-flowered, it constitutes a handsome 
object, and so distinct from other kinds of vegetation 
that its presence in the greenhouse is particularly 
welcome. In the Glasgow Botanic Gardens it is grown 
against a wall where its natural habit of throwing out 
roots and clinging to the wall in the manner of Ivy is 
encouraged. 
This habit is common to a great many members of 
the same family, and when so inclined a much greater 
amount of growth is produced, just as we find in plants 
that climb by means of tendrils, or by twining when they 
are furnished with supports. As a pot plant M. 
coccinea attains a height of 12 ins. to 18 ins., but more 
often a medium between these heights ; whereas against 
a wall in Glasgow it is 10 ft. high, and 3 ft. or 4 ft. in 
breadth, with climbing roots developed from the stems. 
Propagation is easily effected by cuttings in spring 
or summer * and the plants should afterwards be giown 
in close fibry peat with plenty of sand to insure 
porosity, and ample drainage. A rather humid atmo¬ 
sphere is also very favourable to a free and unstinted 
growth, a fact suggested by the development of roots 
from the stem, as well as by the moisture-loving habits 
of many other members of the same family with which 
we are most familiarly acquainted. From this we are 
to gather that although the plant can be grown in an 
ordinary greenhouse and receive similar treatment to 
that accorded to other subjects grown there, it may be 
more successfully grown in a house where the atmo¬ 
sphere is kept in a more humid condition, provided 
the temperature is proportionately higher. It is thus 
