THE LADIES’ FLORAL CABINET. 
37 
little moisture. Bunches of them growing in such spots 
are very interesting and pretty. 
The Sedums, too, are in great variety, and vary greatly, 
from large forms like the Live-forever (. Sedum tele- 
phiurri) of old gardens and roadsides, to tiny little plants 
forming mats of stems and leaves on the surface of the 
rocks ; many have very pretty flowers, others ornamental 
foliage. A great many of them are suitable for pockets 
and crevices in ledges or rockeries. 
Other plants suitable for such places are the Campa¬ 
nulas Carpatica and rotundifolia, the last, our common 
Harebell, the first from the Carpathian Mountains. It 
produces large blue flowers for a long season. Then 
there are Alyssums, saxatile and Jm monetise, with bright 
yellow flowers, and erysimum pulchellum, with rosettes 
of leaves and yellow flowers, the Moneywort ( Lysimachia 
nummularia ), the Ground Ivy (Nepeta glechoma) for a 
moist, shady spot, the evergreen Myrtle ( Vinca minor), 
also for shady places. The Adam’s Needle ( Yucca fila¬ 
ment osa), or its narrow-leaved variety, Y. augustifolia, 
for a prominent place, where a large plant is needed. 
For a dry place, the Opuntias, or Prickly Pears, those 
curious and prickly Cacti with large yellow flowers. 
For pockets in the rockery the creeping Phloxes, Ceras- 
tiums, Arenarias, or Sandworts, Speedwells, Pasque 
Flower, Columbines, and many others of low growing 
habit could be picked out of a list of herbaceous plants 
that would be suitable. 
There are also many varieties of Ferns that are suitable 
for a rockery. For moist limestone rocks the cliff Brakes 
Peilcea grascilis, and the Walking Fern ( Lycopodium 
alopecuroides), the first is difficult to grow and rare, but 
very pretty. For dry limestone rocks in crevices, Peilcea 
atropurpurea , for shady places the Polypody {Polypo¬ 
dium vulgare), the Bladder Ferns (Cystopteris bulbijera, 
and grascilis), for Evergreen Ferns Aspidium marginale 
and the Spleenworts Asplenium acrostichoides with 
fronds one and a half feet long, A. ebeneum, with tufts of 
narrow fronds, A. Prichomanes, a very delicate and 
diminutive little Fern. Ferns require a cool, shady place, 
with moisture, and a light, porous soil. 
A complete list of plants could not be made for any 
locality, as conditions vary, but suggestions can be made 
as to the classes of plants that will grow in a rockery, and 
those who are really interested will not be slow in finding 
plants to add to their collection. 
Many beautiful rock plants are grown in England that 
we cannot grow here, and those who plant them will be 
disappointed; but we have on the mountains in our 
own country a great number of beautiful Alpine plants, 
and it is very desirable that some person with time and 
means will collect and test them for the benefit of lovers 
of flowers. 
A rockery is liable to be disappointing even in the most 
favored locality, unless care and observation is exercised 
to establish the plants, and it will take more than one year 
to get one filled so as to look well; an unfilled rockery is 
not pretty or interesting, but one that is filled with a 
carefully selected list of plants is the most fascinating and 
interesting spot in the whole garden; it is always new, 
and there is always a place to add another treasure. 
Warren H. Manning. 
THE APHIS. 
A T the extremities of the young shoots of the Rose-tree 
are myriads of very small insects, of a reddish green, 
which entirely cover the branch and seem motionless ; 
they are aphides or vine-fretters, which are born within a 
line or two of the place where they now are, and which 
never venture to travel one inch in the course of their 
lives. They have a little proboscis, which they plunge 
into the epidermis of the branch, and by means of which 
they suck certain juices which nourish them. They will 
not eat the Rose-tree. There are more than five hun¬ 
dred assembled upon one inch of the branch, and neither 
foliage nor branch seem to suffer much. Almost every 
plant is inhabited by aphides, differing in color from 
those upon others. Those of the Elder are velvety black ; 
those of the Apricot a glossy black ; those of the Oak a 
bronze color; those of the Gooseberry trees are like 
mother-of-pearl; upon the Absinthe-tree they are spot¬ 
ted white and brown; on the Field-sorrel black and 
green; upon the Birch, black and another shade of green; 
upon the Privet, of a yellowish green and upon the Pear- 
tree coffee-colored. 
All enjoy a life sufficiently calm. You scarcely ever 
see an insect of this kind which is vagabond enough to 
pass from one branch to another. They sometimes go 
so lar as to make the tour of the branch they dwell upon ; 
but we believe that this is only done in the effervescence 
of ill-regulated youth, or under tne empire of some 
passion. These outbreaks are extremely rare. Some of 
these aphides, however, have wings; but these wings 
only come at a ripe age, and they do not abuse them. 
The only serious care that seems to occupy the life of 
the aphis is the changing of its clothes, it changes its 
skin, in fact, four times before it becomes a perfect aphis; 
something like men who try on, two or three characters 
before they fix upon one, although in general three are 
preserved : one which we exhibit, one which we fancy 
we have, and another which we really have. 
When the aphides have finished changing their skins, 
there only remains one duty to fulfill, which is, to multiply 
their species; they produce their little ones while feeding 
on the branches, and never take the trouble to even look at 
their offspring. One aphis will produce about a hundred ; 
and each one takes its rank below its predecessor, and 
plunges its little trunk in the green skin of the branches 
and begins to eat. In ten or eleven days, they change 
their skin four times ; on the twelfth day, in their turn, 
they begin to produce little ones who take their rank, and 
themselves become prolific toward the twelfth day after 
