698 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
August 15, 1P03. 
usually not visible to the naked eye, but if any observer takes 
the trouble to note the position of the growing top of the 
plant, and looks at it again after some hours, he will find 
that it has shifted its position considerably; and if he had 
sufficient patience to sit and watch the plant he would find 
that in coming in contact with any object round which it could 
twine the growing point would press itself, as it were, against 
this object while it continues to grow and lengthen. Plants do 1 
not always twine in the same direction. For instance, the 
Convolvulus, or Bindweed, twines against the sun, but other 
twiners move in just the opposite direction. All these move¬ 
ments and particular behaviour of plants make a useful study 
for those who have sufficient leisure to make the observations 
and record the same. 
An illustration is also given of a tree that sprang up in the 
crack of a rock, and ultimately split it apart. We have the 
figure of a- Pine which settled on the top of a ruined wall of 
an old chapel. Of course, this refers, in the first place, to a 
seed being moved or carried from place to place by the wind, 
or the cone containing the seed might have been carried by 
birds. A rather interesting case is that of a cluster of Mush¬ 
rooms which grew in the bottom of a pot containing a woody 
plant. The Mushrooms grew to fill the pot, and turned the 
other subject clean out of it, soil and all. The Hop plant 
twines by following the course of the sun. Various kinds of 
movements in the flowers of plants also come under review, 
and it may interest some to learn of a root which tied a very 
complicated knot. 
The subject of carnivorous plants is passed under review, 
and numerous illustrations give the reader an idea of the 
mechanism by which plants contrive to catch and hold their 
prey in the shape of insects and other lowly creatures which 
contain the ingredients necessary for the sustenance of the 
plants in question. \\ e may here say that the plants which 
resort to these means of acquiring food have some deficiency 
or other in their root system, and therefore adopt this means 
for supplying their larder with the additional food elements. 
To the naked eye the spines in a pitcher plant are not very 
obvious, but when magnified they are seen to be formidable 
enough to the insects which happen to get' caught. The more 
important of the insectivorous plants are passed under review, 
and illustrations ai'e given of Nepenthes, Ultricularia, Austia^ 
lian pitcher plant-, which was. figured in the Supplement of 
The Gardening World for July 18th ; also the Butterwort, ?• 
section of the leaf of the same, the Sundew, and its various 
parts concerned in the catching and holding of insects by 
means of their movements and a slimy fluid. A coloured plate 
is given of Venus’s Flytrap. 
There are also several other insectivorous plants, many of 
them natives of the sa-ndy districts of Australia, and seldom 
seen in cultivation, but, as they differ very slightly in their 
methods of catching insects, they do not- offer sufficient induce¬ 
ments for dealing with them at any great length. There is 
one other plant, however, occasionally seen in cultivation, and 
that is. the Portugal Flycatcher, which differs from Drosera or 
Sundew merely in botanical details. It. may be stated, how¬ 
ever, that it has two sets of glands for catching insects— 
namely, a series of long-stalked ones, and a set of sh orris talked 
ones, at a lower level, so that an unfortunate insect has little 
chance of escape when once it has become entangled in this 
form of trap. 
In the introduction are photographs of many illustrious and 
scientific men, including the Hon. Robert Boyle, natural 
philosopher; Carl Linnaeus, the father of botany; Sir Isaac 
Newton, natural philosopher; Edward Jenner, the discoverer 
of vaccination; Charles Robert Darwin, naturalist; Michael 
Faraday, chemist; Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist; Sir 
William Crooks, chemist; Lord Avebury, naturalist; and Lord 
Lister, the introducer of antiseptic surgery. The same part, 
gives a chapter on “ How the Camera Works,” which may prove 
of interest to our readers who are amateur photographers, as 
it deals with subjects which are engrossing the attention of 
almost every class of people at the present day, especially when 
on tour for their holidays. 
Another phase of science is that which deals with the birth 
and upbringing of an oyster. This is a class of cultivation 
with which few of our readers can be acquainted, as the locali¬ 
ties where they can be cultivated successfully are relatively few. 
The chapter on “ A Piece of Coal ” will take the fancy of a 
larger number of readers, seeing that it deals with old-world 
plants at a time when there were no. cultivators. An illustra¬ 
tion of plants of tiie coal measures gives a general idea of the 
class of vegetation that, occupied the greater portion of the 
surface of the globe in those ancient tunes. The most closely- 
allied representative of these plants at the present day are 
Ferns, Horsetails, and Lycopods. At the present day the last- 
named form dwarf, moss-like plants, or, in the case of the very 
strongest, assume a semi-climbing habit; but in the age of the 
world when the coal plants flourished these really formed the 
forests, the Lycopods especially being often trees of great size. 
At a little more recent, period we come to the progenitors of the 
Pines and Araucarias, which must, have formed immense trees. 
Even at. the present, day, however, there are many who have 
little idea of the nature of the remains of these ancient forests, 
so that a perusal of this chapter will clear up some of the hazy 
opinions which prevail with regard t.o the actual state in which 
these fossils are now found. Most of the coal which we burn 
consists of carbon which has lost all form of the plants from 
which it was derived, so that the fossils proper can only he 
discerned when they form impressions or imprints upon the 
harder material amongst the coal measures. These fossilised 
remains are usually impressed on stone, which may originally 
have existed in the form of sand, or it may have been in the 
form of day when the plants were deposited along with them, 
and these hardened pieces of clay and sandstone retain the 
impression or imprint of the Ferns, Lycopods, and Horsetails 
which the archaeologist collects. 
Several excellent photographs are given of these fossil im¬ 
prints on stone, which from their antiquity would serve to show 
that the globe must already have existed for immense periods 
of time, seeing that these fossils of the coal measures are ob¬ 
tained at such great depths from the surface, as a lule. In 
certain cases they would he found near the surface, but. that 
usually implies that it. lias been elevated to the surface by 
some natural force on a large scale. It sometimes happens 
also that these ancient fossil trees grew in a layer of clay over¬ 
laying the coal proper, and when the seams of coal are dug 
out the roots of these ancient fossils can be discerned projecting 
through the roof of the mine, showing that the base of the 
trees, at least, must have been fossilised in situ. Illustrations 
are given of some of these ancient fossils, with the markings 
upon them corresponding to the scars of the leaves. 
Basket Bed ii\ Lord Wimborne’s Garden. 
(See Supplement.) 
In rural districts where wood is plentiful it. often happens 
that.the gardener can utilise the rough branches of various 
trees, but particularly those of Oak and Ash, for the purpose 
of making rustic designs of an interesting and even ornamental 
character. In the neighbourbod of London, and other large 
towns, firms devote themselves specially to the building of 
rustic houses, garden seats, and various rustic devices, but on 
the private estate, when handy men are present, it. is often pos¬ 
sible to construct some or other of these devices according to 
the inclination of the gardener and the taste of the ovnei. 
The advantage of these designs is, that, they can very often 
appropriately be fitted into the scenery of the place, and seem 
as if they belonged to it. These designs are much more in¬ 
teresting than ornaments of other kinds, which would be more 
suitable for architectural plans in towns, where the surround¬ 
ings are more limited and formal. 
This week’s Supplement will serve to bring before our readers 
a simple device that may either be copied, imitated, or other¬ 
wise modified, according to the taste and the convenience ot 
the operator. The basket bed illustrated was photographed m 
the garden of Lord Wimborne, Canford Manor, Wimborne, 
Dorsetshire, last spring, and consists of a bed of Pansies and 
