June 11, 1892. 
TUU GARDENING WORLD. 
043 
attar of Roses. Other flowers to which special 
reference was made included Bougainvilleas, 
Poinsettias, Oleanders, and Jasmine, and the effect 
produced by the great masses of Poinsettia and the 
sheets ot Bougainvillea spreading over the houses 
was described as indescribably beautiful. Potatos 
are not as a rule grown well in Kgypt, but they are 
now receiving considerable attention in the vicinity of 
Alexandria, where they are being grown largely for 
the London markets, as it is found that they can be 
placed upon the metropolitan markets in advance of 
Algerian produce. 
- ■*- - 
PEA AND BEAN 
WEEVILS. 
In her report to the Council of the Royal Agricul¬ 
tural Society, on the ist inst., Miss Eleanor A. 
Ormerod referred to the very unusual number which 
has appeared this season in various localities of the 
Pea and Bean weevils, the Sitona lineata and S. 
crinitus, on the leafage chiefly of young Peas, but to 
some degree also on Beans. These beetles are small, 
just over (or under) two lines in length, cylindrical 
in shape, and greyish, or, if old specimens, blackish 
in colour, and they feed by gnawing away the edges 
of the leaves, working gradually onwards, until, in 
bad attacks, the whole leaf may be devoured. This 
infestation is one of our commonest kinds, so far as 
garden crops are concerned, and the beetles are to 
be found in great quantities on Peas at harvesting 
time, but I never before have met with such severe 
infestation on field crops so ehrly in the year. 
From Alcester (Warwickshire) a correspondent 
reported that the ground seemed to be teeming with 
the insects, that the attack was general in this dis¬ 
trict, and affected Beans as well as Peas. From near 
Severn Stoke (Worcestershire), a neighbourhood 
where early Peas are grown, it was reported that 
many acres were destroyed. Near Sandy, in Cam¬ 
bridgeshire, they were noted as threatening ruin to 
winter Beans, but in Essex the attack was especially 
wide spread and severe. From Rochford, report was 
sent on May 2nd of some of the earlier sown fields 
being apparently quite destroyed by the infestation, 
and from Chelmsford, a little earlier, notes were sent 
of scores of acres being destroyed. Similar reports 
of the Peas having suffered terribly were also sent 
from Romford, and from Southminster also the 
report was very bad. 
This unusual amount of appearance is, I conjec¬ 
ture, attributable to weather influences, and might 
very likely arise in part from the first brood of 
beetles developing earlier than usual, consequent on 
a period of warm weather in the early spring, and in 
part also from the difficulties of getting land into 
cultivation in the winter, allowing the shelters for 
the hybernating beetles to remain undisturbed. 
From these shelters (when woke up by sunshine) the 
powerful wings of the beetles would enable them to 
distribute themselves far and wide. Very little 
appears to be known as to remedial measures, but in 
some cases I am aware that dusting the plants with 
lime, or lime and soot, or some similar deterrent, has 
done good. I have therefore drawn attention to 
this, and especially to the importance of dusting 
when the dew is on, or the leafage damp, so that the 
powder might adhere. 
-—- 
PECULIARITIES OF 
PLANT LIFE. 
A meeting of the Ealing Microscopical and Natural 
History Society was held recently, when the Presi¬ 
dent, Rev. Professor Henslow, delivered an address 
on "Peculiarities of Plant Life, ’ ’ dealing with the effects 
produced on plants from the environment and other 
causes, and with singular phenomena attaching to 
plant life in other directions, the causes of which 
latter peculiarities had not been determined. Pro¬ 
fessor Henslow observed that there was, especially 
in France and America, a wide-spread feeling that 
the structure of plants and animals should be studied, 
not only from a classificatory point of view, but also 
in relation to environment, in order to ascertain how 
far the changes which plants obviously could and 
did undergo were referable to their surroundings. 
French botanists had for a long while been leading 
the way in this matter, by experimental endeavours 
to effect alterations in plant structure ; and in many 
instances they had proved that just those changes 
could be produced at will which were deductively 
inferred to be due to conditions in nature similar to 
those they artificially supplied. Therefore we had 
now a considerable body of data on which to 
reasonably base an estimate of the 
Effects of Environment on Plant Life. 
By environment was understood the soil and its 
ingredients, moisture, heat, light, and other elements, 
together constituting what was known as “ climate ; ” 
consequently we were now in a position to arrive at 
some clearer ideas of the general laws in obedience to 
which varieties and species in plants had arisen in 
nature. Mr. Henslow illustrated his remarks upon 
the subject of the effects produced by environment 
by reference to several plants the qualities of which 
as they grew in a wild or natural state had been lost 
by cultivation under different conditions as to soil 
and treatment. All travellers, he said, had noticed 
how spinescent plants abounded in hot, dry, and 
desert regions, and it was an inference or deduction 
that there was some sort of cause or effect between 
the spinescent structure of these plants and the 
conditions with which they had to contend in their 
natural surroundings in those regions. It had been 
shown that spinescent plants could be grown without 
spines under conditions differing from those which 
belonged to their natural surroundings ; thus proving 
that the plant responded to its environment; as soon 
as it was subjected to new influences, it changed its 
structure, so as to bring itself into adaptation to the 
new surroundings. The common Barberry, for 
example, had been made to lose its spinescent leaves 
by being grown in a moist atmosphere, though it 
reproduced them in a dry one ; and the common 
Restharrow, which he had himself gathered in 
Ealing, had, by the method of treatment under 
which he had reared it elsewhere, developed into a 
plant of another character—one in which the spines 
had become extinct. A plant so transferred did not, 
however, lose its original and hereditary charac¬ 
teristics all at once ; there would be a struggle 
between those characteristics and the action of the 
new environment ; for that reason, the spines of a 
spinescent plant, transferred to other conditions of 
growth, did not disappear all at once, but became 
gradually less pronounced, less in accordance with 
their natural and original aspect, and finally extinct. 
Experiments with Vegetables. 
M. Carriere, a French experimenter, said Professor 
Henslow, raised a great variety of Radishes from the 
wild Raphanus Raphanistrum. M. Carriere’s experi¬ 
ments with that plant revealed the fact that the long¬ 
shaped Radishes were produced in a shallow, 
penetrable soil, and the Turnip or rounded forms in 
stiff, resisting soil ; the shapes of the Radishes were 
thus evidently attributable to the comparative 
difficulty or ease with which they penetrated the soil 
in which they were grown. As an example of an im¬ 
proved garden flower, Professor Henslow showed 
how the blossom of the Primula sinensis, first intro¬ 
duced in 1820, was changed in a single year from a 
very small sized to a large-sized flower. The 
Cineraria was another genus the attributes of which 
had altered excessively under cultivation, especially 
in the colour and size of the flowers, and the dwarf 
habit of the plant. 
Water Plants, 
Mr. Henslow pointed out, as experiments had de¬ 
monstrated, adapted themselves just as readily to 
land culture, by changing the structure of the leaves 
from that of a water plant to the form of leaf which 
was associated with a plant grown in air. The con¬ 
clusion one arrived at upon a contemplation of the 
structure and features of water and land plants was 
that aquatic plants were merely' degenerate forms of 
land plants. If a land plant were compelled to grow 
in water, it instantly' degenerated in its functional 
and structural development ; and, as a further proof 
of the degeneracy of water compared with land 
plants, amphibious plants—those which were com 
mon to both land and water—throve much better on 
land; they grew into vigour, and restored tissues 
which had been lost by them in the aquatic state. 
All the peculiar features to which he had referred in 
plants of different kinds were obviously nothing more 
or less than the response or adaptation of the plant 
to its environment, and these distinguishing and 
specific features could be shifted or changed as the 
cultivator desired. The conviction was therefore 
impressed that those specific features and details 
which were seized upon by specialists for the classi¬ 
fication of plants were simply this response or 
adaptation of the plant to the circumstances of 
growth and culture which happened to encompass it 
—circumstances, an alteration in which would be 
followed by an alteration in the individual charac¬ 
teristics of the plant. Professor Henslow afterwards 
asked for information upon the 
Origin of Dwarfing and Enlarging 
The normal size of plants. The former operation 
was, he observed, as far as he could make out, 
simply a process of starving the plant, but he had 
no certain knowledge upon the point l or instance, 
a gentleman selected for growth the very smallest 
seeds of a certain plant ; he sowed those seeds with 
the result that after three years of that treatment 
the plant died out altogether That method of 
treatment was evidently too severe, but he (Pro¬ 
fessor Henslow) would suggest that experiments 
might be conducted with, not the very smallest, but 
with the moderate sized seeds of ordinary annuals; 
that those seeds should be sown in rather a poor 
soil, with the object of raising from them plants of 
dwarf habit; aDd that, with regard to the opposite 
quality—the production of plants which were 
gigantic in comparison with the normal size—the 
experiment should be made by selecting and sowing 
in a soil as rich as could be procured the largest 
seeds of dwarf plants, such as French Beans. If 
any of the members of the society would undertake 
experiments of that description, with the object of 
obtaining either dwarf or giant plants, he would feel 
obliged to them. He would also ask them to under¬ 
take like experiments with regard to heath and rock 
plants, for the purpose of discovering whether, when 
sown under different circumstances of propagation, 
those plants would lose the characteristics they 
naturally possessed. He would advise the trans 
ference of rock plants first to a rich and moist soil, 
and afterwards to water, and the transference of 
heath plants to a rich and wet soil He would 
further suggest the growth of aquatic plants on land 
and of land plants in water, that the changes in the 
anatomical tissues of the roots, stems and leaves 
which followed upon the new environment might be 
noted. Professor Henslow concluded his discourse 
by detailing 
Some Curious Metamorphoses 
That occurred in flowers and plants, and urged that 
florists and horticulturists when they perceived anv 
unusual feature in the form or structure of a flower 
or plant should take note of it. that by that method 
of observation the causes of the singular metamor¬ 
phoses and phenomena that were now discerned in 
certain plants and flowers, and the reasons for which 
were not at present ascertainable, though the effect 
was plainly seen, might be discovered.—In the 
course of a short discussion that followed, reference 
was made to the sporting of Chrysanthemums and 
to the doubling of Petunias, on the point of whether 
those floral achievements were not often due to 
climatic conditions.—Professor Henslow remarked 
that Chrysanthemums had been known to sport 
simultaneously all over England, or at least over 
several counties, and that concurrent result certainly 
indicated a climatic cause. Again the doubling of 
Petunias had, after several ineffectual attempts, been 
accomplished in the same year in both England and 
Germany, and in this matter again climatic condi¬ 
tions appeared, from the extent of the area simulta¬ 
neously covered, to be the factor that had produced 
the alteration in the condition of the flower—The 
proceedings terminated with a vote of thanks to 
Professor Henslow for his address. 
♦ 
LAWN SPRINKLERS. 
Your remarks on a dry spring in the number for 
May 28th remind me that I may do some one a good 
turn by directing their attention to the thoroughly 
useful character of the Lawn Sprinkler. I believe I 
am correct in saying that it is an American invention; 
but be that as it may, I can say from experience that 
it is a valuable introduction. I have had them in 
use for the last four years, and have recently got 
some new ones from a firm advertising in your 
columns. 
Gentlemen visiting here, who have travelled a good 
deal in America, tell me that they are much used in 
the States for watering lawns, green, well kept lawns 
being much thought of there as here. As yet we 
have not found it necessary to use them on our lawns, 
but they do us real good service in the kitchen 
garden and on our fruit tree borders. One of their 
greatest merits is that after connecting them with the 
garden hose, and placing them in position, they 
require no further attention.— Con. 
