04 



EECHEATIVE SCIENCE. 



The embryo tree is indeed a. wonderful 

 object, and well worth examination j but it 

 is not until the second year of its life that 

 woody fibre begins to be deposited ; before 

 that period it is a mass of cellular tissue 

 only, pierced longitudinally with woody mat- 

 ter ; when, however, the future tree is once 

 actually and regularly formed, all goes on in 

 the same routine to its fall by the hand of 

 man or the decay of nature. 



The bark is continually renewing inter- 

 nally as it externally perishes, and seems to 

 form a protection and a vehicle as circum- 

 stances of situation and climate require. 

 Thus cork, that useful and well-known sub- 

 stance, is the product and covering of a 

 species of osikiCluercus suher), grown chiefly 

 in Spain. As to the uses of wood, the forma- 

 tion and situation of the tubes or cells, the 

 form of the cotyledons or seed-leaves, or 

 the botanical arrangement, I shall now say 

 nothing ; suffice it that the exogens are the 

 more numerous, and are found in all coun- 

 tries, and number nearly 60,000 species, that 

 is, of exogens generally, including trees ; the 

 ordering of which is not considered by any 

 means satisfactory. Some of the noblest 

 specimens of timber of which this island 

 can boast are of the cedar (cedrus) or 

 fir (pinus) kind ; and the silver-fir (genus 

 JPicea) has attained in some instances a 

 vast growth. But what are these com- 

 pared to the cotton-trees of California, 

 the boabab, or monkey-bread tree (Adam- 

 sonia digitata) of Africa, which is of this 

 tribe {Bomhacece), being said to be the 

 largest tree in the world, giving a bulk of 

 60 feet in circumference to 12 in height! 

 If travellers can be credited, when one of the 

 Californian trees has fallen from old age 

 or some other cause, the way is com- 

 pletely blocked up by its prone stem, which 

 rises in diameter to the height of a man on 

 horseback ! A hollow cotton-tree has formed 

 the shelter for a party of horsemen from the 

 El norte, or sudden hurricane of the South 



American continent, and a habitation during 

 a whole winter for a squatter and his famUy ; 

 and they frequently reach the enormous 

 height of 350 feet ! 



O. S. EoriTD. 



WAEDIAN CASES. 



It is too often the case that those who intend 

 to embellish their dwellings with fern-eases 

 defer the planting of them till the season of 

 flowers is fully over. The cases are then 

 placed in the windows, and planted with 

 ferns, but owing to the rapid decline of the 

 season, there is not sufficient warmth to 

 enable the plants to make fresh roots in 

 their new abodes ; and besides this, having 

 completed their season, and formed the 

 hidden fronds which are to appear next 

 spring, they have but little disposition to 

 send out fibres into the soil to which they , 

 are thus untimely introduced. Hence, where 

 such adornments are used only in the winter 

 they should be planted at once, while vege- 

 tation is still active, in order that they may 

 be, to use a horticultural phrase, "esta- 

 blished" before winter sets in. Evergreen 

 ferns should be chosen for the purpose, and 

 unless the cultivator has had some expe- 

 rience, the hardiest British and exotic ferns 

 should have preference over kinds that are 

 tenderly constituted. A very simple way of 

 stocking fern-cases which are to take the 

 place of flower-stands and other summer 

 embellishments, and which are to be re- 

 moved in the spring, is to procure an assort- 

 ment of healthy plants in small pots, arrange 

 them to produce a good effect, and then hide 

 the pots by a covering of fresh moss, which 

 wiU. keep its green colour till spring. Cinders 

 are the best drainage for fern-cases, and 

 turfy peat the best soil. 



H. 



