260 



HABDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Nov. 1, 1870. 



BOTANY. 



Climate Products of California.— This is a 

 bad year to form any opinion of the products and 

 beauty of this country, owing to the small rainfall 

 during the past winter, or rather rainy season. 

 There has been more drought so far this year than 

 in any preceding one for the last forty years, so 

 some of the old settlers tell me. A dry year occurs, 

 as a rule, about every seven years; but I believe, as 

 the country becomes settled up, and the landholders 

 see the benefit of tree-planting for timber, there 

 will be a marked increase in the rainfall. Most of 

 the plains in the southern counties are now desti- 

 tute of trees, and what few valleys are timbered are 

 rapidly being cleared for firewood ; and no one at 

 present plants any trees but what will in a short 

 time bring him in a good return — say, fruit-trees, 

 comprising Orange, Lemon, Citron, Lime, Fig, 

 Olive, Almond, Peach, Nectarine, Plum, Apricot, 

 Pear, Walnut, and Vine (the Apple does not do 

 very well here) ; hedge-trees, Willow and Osage 

 Orange ; side-walk trees, Locust (not the Honey- 

 Locust), Pepper, and some few Poplars. The 

 climate is everything that can be desired, neither 

 too hot in summer nor too cold in winter. There 

 has never yet been a case of sunstroke or hydropho- 

 bia in the whole of California. The rose blooms all 

 the year round ; and, since I came here, the Geraniums 

 (zonale), A r erbenas, and Petunias have been a per- 

 fect blaze of colour. I many times wonder how 

 some of the new varieties of the above would look 

 if grown here; the older varieties of roses are 

 larger and finer than any of the same varieties I 

 have seen at the rose shows in England. This 

 would be a good place for the hybridist, everything 

 growing to such perfection, and no rough or cold 

 weather to contend with. There are some enor- 

 mous vegetables grown here, beets over a hundred 

 pounds in weight, and melons after the giant gourd 

 style. The Castor-oil plant is a tree in some cases 

 thirty feet high, and trunk eighteen inches in dia- 

 meter at base, beautiful with nearly every shade of 

 leaf-colouring, and with gorgeous spikes of bloom. 

 The Date-palm seems to me quite as tall and healthy 

 as in Jamaica: there are, I believe, only three speci- 

 mens in this valley, and three at the San Gabriel 

 Mission, ten miles distant. There is also a variety 

 of Ean-palm in several gardens, which grows very 

 luxuriantly. I believe the Banana will grow here : 

 several friends of mine are about trying it, as the 

 fruit brings a good price. The grapes are not yet 

 in the market, but the vines are promising well. 

 The price of the wine grapes here (Mission variety 

 chieily) is half a cent per pound, and money is very 

 different in value to what it is in England ; a dollar, 

 4s. 2d., in most ways, only goes about as far as Is. 

 in England, and the smallest coin in circulation is a 



dime, or ten cents: in San Erancisco five-centpieces 

 are partially used, but are looked upon something 

 like the farthing iu England. — The Gardener's 

 Magazine. 



Fingers and Toes. — The malformation among 

 the turnips, locally known as " Eingers and Toes," 

 is said to be very prevalent this year in the west, 

 and the subject of much talk in rural districts : in 

 considering this unsightly distortion of the root, 

 whereby it is multiplied into a knotted and deformed 

 tassel of crooked fibres and digital disfigurement, 

 may not the question be suggestively asked if this 

 perversion of sap directing its growing efforts be- 

 neath the surface of the ground instead of above it, 

 be due to a lapse of nourishment, by the want of 

 rain, when the poor turnip, impoverished by hard 

 fare, with its meagre top and dwindled bulb, re- 

 venges its deprivation of moisture by reversing the 

 order of nature ? — B., Foicey. 



Foxglove (p. 91). — The following extract from 

 Coles's " Adam in Eden " is interesting when taken 

 in connexion with Mr. Britten's (I.e.) : " Fuschius 

 makes as if he were the first that called it Digitalis, 

 being induced thereunto by the hollow form of the 

 flowers, which are like finger-stalls. ... It hath no 

 other name in English that I know but Foxgloves, 

 unlesse some call it Foxfinger " (p. 126, edition 

 1657). There is but one copy, I think, in the British 

 Museum, and that wants pp. 152 — 157, 396—551 ! 

 — B.T., M.A. 



Herbs. — It may interest some readers to have 

 a few more choice extracts from Cockeram's 

 Dictionary (p. 235), under the above heading. 

 " There are nineteen so called herbs, of which the 

 following are the most noteworthy. Achimedis, an 

 herb which being cast into an army in time of battle, 

 causeth the soldiers to be in fear; Anacramseros, 

 an herb, the touch whereof causeth love to grow 

 betwixt man and man ; Ilippice, an herb, borne in 

 one's mouth, keeps one from hunger and thirst; 

 Oplnjasta, an herb dangerous to look on, and being 

 drunk, it doth terriiie the inside with a sight of 

 dreadful serpents, that condemned persons for fear 

 thereof do kill themselves ; Gelotaphilois, an herb 

 drunk with wine and myrrh, causeth much laughter." 

 With this last I close the strange collection, adding 

 only that this Dictionary is "an interpreter of 

 hard English words, enabling, as well ladies and 

 gentlewomen, young scholars, clerks, merchants, as 

 also strangers of any nation, to the understanding 

 of the more difficult authors already printed in our 

 language, and the more speedy attaining of an ele- 

 gant perfection of the English tongue, both in read- 

 ing, speaking, and writing." It would be interest- 

 ing to know upon what foundation this (in our 

 view) nonsense rests. — R.T., M.A. 



