AUTUMN TINTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20851, 18 April 1931, Page 8 (Supplement)

AUTUMN TINTS.

GORGEOUS VARIETIES. Autumn tints, influenced by the dry stato of tho soil and lower night temperatures, are much earlier and more brilliant than usual, and are already conspicuous among those trees, climbers, and other plants that losa their leaves with tho approach of winter. The gorgeous leaf lints of some species present a greater diversity and brilliance of colour than if the plants were a profusion of blossoms.

The different varieties of ampelopsis, a genus nearly allied to vitis (the North American species hederacea, or the Virginian creeper, as it is commonly called), is noted for its autumn tints. The more recent variety, tricuspidata, or veitchii, as it is generally called, is now very conspicuous, covering stono walls and climbing up tho sides and reaching the roofs of high buildings, and rambling over rocks. It attaches itself without any training, and cannot but attract attention of the most casual observer, with its glorious mass of colouring, in several tints of orange, crimson and red. This variety is much the best of tho species and of the easiest cultivation. The leaves vary in shape during the different stages of growth. In the young stage the leaves are almost entire. With the older vines they become larger and more divided. Lagerstroemia indica, the crape myrtle, is the first among shrubs to turn colour. The leaves assume the brightest crimson. The flowers produced during the summer in terminal racemes are most attractive. ANEMONE JAPONICA. USEFUL PLANTS. The herbaceous varieties of Japanese anemones are easily grown and very distinct. These autumn flowering plants are now in full bloom, and will continue for several weeks. There are several varieties in shades of pink, rose and deep red. Alba is a splendid variety with a profusion of large, pure white flowers on long stems. There are single, semi-double and full double-formed flowers. • The plants are easily propagated from root cuttings or divisions. Tlicy are useful plants .for the wild garden and beneath the shade of trees. When once planted they are permanent, as they increase from the'root suckers forming extensive clumps. They are also well adapted for the mixed border, where they add to the autumn floral display and aru useful for cutting.

EMPIRE PLANT DOCTORS. STUDY OF VARIOUS DISEASES, Millions of harmful fungi, ranging from tiny spores that can be seen only under a microscope to huge, flabby forest growths as largo across as an umbrella, have recently been moved into a £12,000 building just erected at Kew, near London. This is the now headquarters of the Imperial Mycological Institute, formerly the Bureau of Mycology, which has been built with the aid of an Empire Marketing Boa id grant. The institute is supported jointly by the Dominions, the colonies, and Croat Britain, and is the wise man of the Empire on all forms of plant disease, from leaf mosaics to root growths and Panama disease in bananas to rust iri wheat.

The new building stands on tho famous Kew green by the side of the river Thames, within sight of an old church where the painter Gainsborough is buried. On each side of it stand mellowed red brick houses built in the spacious days of the George.", and now given over to botanists whose duty is to catalogue and study every plant that grows in any part of the world, for tho records of the Royal Botanic Gardens. The mvcological building has been so designed as to harmonise perfectly with its surroundings. The only external clue to its real purpose is a frieze of toadstools over the door copied closely from scientific drawings. Inside a small group of scientists, headed by Dr. E. J. Butler, F.R.S., is working to reduce the immense wastage in Empire production caused by plant diseases. electricity and soil. SPEEDING UP THE FARM. • Growers of vegetables in Lincolnshire have been experimenting with a system of heating the soil with electricity, so as to secure better and earlier crops. The idea of heating (he ground for intensive agricultural production isn't a new one, but it is only now that it is beginning to be put into practice. It is possibly carried farthest 011 an experimental farm near Berlin, where over 4500 square yards of land are warmed by electric cables. On the same farm the fowls' quarters are so arranged that, the temperature remains constant all tho time, and that when an egg is laid it drops 011 to a travelling band and is carried away, to be stamped with the date and marketed. Agriculture is thus becoming very much up to dale. And many of the recent improvements may bo traced to the preaching and example of an Englishman, Mr. Borlase Matthews, who is one of the pioneers of electricity on the farm.