Bones. Lay a quantity of partially-picked boiled bones in the haunts, and they will be quickly covered with insects. As soon as this occurs, throw the bones into hot water. Before laying them down again, let all superfluous moisture drain off. This is a cheap remedy, and, if persisted in, is very effectual.
Carbolic Acid. This, if of good strength, diluted with about ten or twelve times its bulk of water, and well sprinkled over paths or other places where there is no vegetation, will keep the Ants away. It has, however, an objectionable smell.
Paraffin Oil. Paraffin, mixed with six times its bulk of water, and sprinkled over the nests every few days, will kill and drive away Ants; but the smell is disagreeable.
Quassia. 4oz. of quassia chips, boiled in a gallon of water for about ten minutes, and 4oz. of soap added to the liquor as it cools, if used like the preceding, is fairly effectual; but this, like the other remedies, must be persisted in for some time.
Fly pans or saucers, nearly filled with thin honey or sweet oil, attract Ants, and they are drowned in them. Ants are very hard to clear effectually out of a place, and therefore it is very desirable, in all attempts to be rid of them, to persist in the above remedies. When not living close to the roots or stems of plants, the best and surest remedy of all is to flood them out or scald them in with boiling water. The specifics are endless, but the best are mentioned above.
ANTWERP HOLLYHOCK. See [Althæa ficifolia.]
AOTUS (from a, without, and ous, an ear; in allusion to the absence of appendages in the calyx, which distinguishes it from its allied genus, Pultenæa). ORD. Leguminosæ. Elegant little greenhouse evergreen shrubs, with yellow flowers, and simple, linear-subulate leaves, revolute at the margins, alternate or nearly opposite, or three in a whorl. They should be grown in a compost of equal parts loam, sand, and peat, with a little charcoal, and the pots should be well drained. Cuttings of half-ripened wood, made in April, root freely in sand, under a bell glass.
A. gracillima (most slender).* fl. yellow and crimson, small, on long, dense, graceful spikes, which are often over a foot long; pedicels short. May. h. 3ft. New Holland, 1844. A very pretty slender growing shrub.
A. villosa (soft-haired). fl. axillary, disposed in racemose spikes along the branches; calyx silky. April. l. smoothish on the upper surface. h. 1ft. to 2ft. New Holland, 1790.
APEIBA (the native name in Guiana.) ORD. Tiliaceæ. Very handsome stove evergreen trees or shrubs, clothed with starry down. Flowers large, golden yellow, pedunculate, bracteate. Capsule spherical, depressed, rough from rigid bristles. Leaves broad, alternate, entire or serrate. They thrive in a mixture of loam and peat. The best way to induce them to flower in this country is by cutting a ring round the bark of a large branch; by this means the growth is stopped. Well ripened cuttings should be planted in sand in heat, under a bell glass, which should be tilted occasionally, so as to give a little air to the cuttings, otherwise they are apt to damp off.