April i , 1885,] 



THE TROPICAL AGRTCtJLTITRIST. 



775 



or leguminous plants with edible seeds, and of cruciferous j 

 plants with fleshy roots. 



Another class of plants is mentioned as having been 

 observed but rarely in the wild state, probably occurring 

 only occasionally, and now extinct or likely to become so, 

 as indigenous plants. This class includes wheat, maize, 

 the common hean, lentil, chick-pea, and tobacco. Their 

 failur e in the struggle for existence is due in all cases to 

 their possessing seeds containing abundance of starch, and 

 consequently affording an attractive food for birds, but 

 having no power of passing through the alimentary canal 

 unchanged. If dropped out of cultivation, they would prob- 

 ably entirely disappear. M. de Oandolle has not observed 

 in any of the species investigated the slightest indication 

 of adaptation to cold. When the cultivation of a species, 

 such as maize, flax, or tobacco, advances northwards, it is 

 from the production of early varieties which can ripen 

 their fruit during the short summer. Periods of more than 

 four thousand or five thousand years appear to bo required 

 to produce a modification in a plant which will allow it 

 to support a greater degree of cold. 



These are a few of the general facts which M. de C'au- 

 dolle brings before us. The details in the case of part- 

 icular species are full of iuterest. Thus he shows how 

 the bitter orange we certainly introduced into Europe 

 before the sweet orange, but both at comparatively recent 

 dates, the introduction of the former being appareutly one 

 of the benefits conferred on Europe by the conquest of 

 the south of Spain by the Moors. All the species of tobacco, 

 with the exception of one from Australia, are stated to 

 bo natives of Southern America. — Pharmaceutical Journal. 



MISS NOKTH ON VEGETATION IN CHILI. 



Tho following is an extract from a letter written by 

 Miss North to Professor Allman, here published by per- 

 mission of the writer. Miss North left this country last 

 autumn with the view of studying the vegetation of the 

 western side of the Andes, especially in the Chilian re- 

 gion, where she is now engaged in painting the character- 

 istic features of that portion of the Andean flora, hoping 

 thereby to fill up almost the only gap still remaining in 

 her marvellous gallery at Kew. One of Miss North's 

 special objects in visiting that part of the world was to 

 find an opportunity of painting the Araucaria imbricata 

 in its native haunts, She had not yet, however, reached 

 the proper region of the Araucaria. which is at a con- 

 siderable distance from her present quarters, but has made 

 the necessary preparations for the journey, and hopes 

 soon to get studies of this singular and characteristic 

 form of Chilian vegetation. 



Though reference to the Araucaria is thus necessarily 

 omitted in her letter, Miss North's graphic account of 

 tho vegetation amidst which she is living will be read 

 with no little pleasure by every one interested in the 

 geographical distribution and physiognomy of plants, 

 and in their significance as elements in the landscape. 

 '• Apoquiudo, Chili, Oct. 28, lo84. 

 " Dear Dr. Allman, — Again I am going to bestow on 

 you the glories of a vegetable, too magnificent and unique 

 to be appreciated by ordinary mortals. Last spring botan- 

 ical journals told every one to go aud see the 1'uya in 

 the Cactus-house at Kew, and 1 made a hurried sketch 

 in the midst of all my 'fixings' aud vexations in the 

 gallery, [A figure of P. ccerulea alias Wbytei was givnu 

 in our columns, October, 1, 1881-1 I did not like to 

 propose that such a precious plant should be taken nit<> 

 my room. Its relations here would not even own it! I 

 have a flower of one leaning against the post of the 

 verandah before me now, which is just as much as I can 

 lilt with difficulty. The flower-spike is over a yard long, 

 its stalk (S feet. It has sixty spikes, arranged screw fashion, 

 round its stalk, each about a foot long, and round these 

 are rosettes of flowers and some score of buds of the 

 tenderest green or lemon colour. The great heads before 

 tlic flowers come out are wrapped up in covers of white 

 kid, tinted with salmon, getting darker as they fall aside 

 and the lemon buds push themselves out, and the first 

 Bowers, which open round the base of the spikes near the 

 stalk, are of the purest turquoise-blue; the now rosette 

 which replaces them is darker, metallic-blue, aud thru all 

 the others seem to get more and more green and faded 



the further they get from the central stalk, and moro 

 separate, with a background of brown bracts or leaves 

 (the original white kid covers). Yesterday I rode aud 

 scrambled on foot far into the hills, and saw masses of 

 these hugo flowers. On ono mass of silvery Piue-liko loaves 

 there were twenty-six flower-stalks, most of them brown 

 heads of last year, with the seeds shaken out, and all 

 growing on the steepest slopes, and having as companions 

 giant Cacti, with a Loranthus parasite covering their sides, 

 facing east or 60uth ; they are now covered with scarlet 

 berries, which grow white when ripe, and are not bad to 

 eat, tasting like Roses; tho juice from the stalk of the 

 white trumpet flower of the Cactus is also good. I am 

 black and blue from the falls I have had on those steep 

 banks, with no foothold but sliding stones and prickly 

 bushes for hands to grasp as help, but it is worth some 

 trouble to see such things. Every bush seems prickly or 

 poisonous here, the ' Nettle,' a plant with red and yellow 

 flowers (Bluuienbachia) raises watery, blister-like burns, 

 which last days on one's hands. When I see you, I 

 shall ask you to tell me how and why it does it. I had 

 a theory that it did not sting till tho flowers had opened, 

 hut touched the buds once too often, and will not theoriso 

 in that way again. The common Acacia (much like the 

 Dornboom or Baubul of Africa ana India) is terribly 

 thorny, yet seems quite a favourite place for birds to build 

 nests in, and one clever weaver makes his home of the 

 very thorns, lining the inside with the soft gold ball 

 flowers. I tried in vain to get the nest to take home 

 — I brought out only bleeding hands, but it is painted; 

 and I hope to get the bird from Dr. Phillippi at the 

 Museum. Another bird's nest with two eggs I found in 

 a hollow dead Cactus pillar, made entirely of feathers, 

 and one of the thorny sort wedged between two live 

 Cacti. "Wo went to a grand waterfall yesterday, the 

 young landlord acting as my guide, and close under it I 

 saw Darwin's Berberry. The tree, whose bark is used 

 for soap, was growing in quantities there [Quillaia], with 

 Ecremocarpus hanging from it, and the tiny scarlet Tro- 

 pseolum all over the lower bushes ; also a lovely pink 

 flowering creeper, whose name I forget. The other flowers 

 are very tiny ; several Vetches of different colours, Oxalis, 

 Lilies, scentless Heliotropes, Verbenas, yellow Forget-me- 

 Not, yellow and Lemon Calceolarias, hanging from tho 

 rocks, and Maidenhair, which stands upright, not hang- 

 ing. — Mahiakne North.— Gardeners' Chronicle. 



CHINESE HORTIOULTUKE. 



A Chinese kitchen garden contains almost all our veget- 

 ables, and many more besides. If they do not care to 

 grow potatoes, except where there are Europeans to eat 

 them, they grow the batata, which is sold boiled at 

 every street corner. Of the water-lily, sacred to Buddha, 

 they eat the sugary seeds; and also a sort of sago made 

 from its root. "Water-chestnuts," too (eaten by the old 

 lake dwellers in Switzerland), are largely grown. Every 

 canal is full of floating islands of them ; and the -gather- 

 ing must look like that picture in this year's Grosvenor 

 of Athelney in Flood, whero young and old are going about 

 after the apples in boats. Instead' of boats put tubs, 

 each pushed with a bamboo pole by a yellow man or 

 woman, and paint two or three upsets, for John China- 

 man is full of fun, and those who have seen a water- 

 chestnut harvesting say that everybody is on the broad 

 grin, and accepts a ducking with the same good humour 

 with which he gives otic. They cultivate fungi, too, 

 burying the rotten stump of a tree which bears harm- 

 less ones, and so ensuring a crop. One kind, the lin-chi, 

 is one of the emblems of immortality. It gets as dry 

 as those honey-combed fungi which they eat in mid- 

 France, and "keeps good" for years. The bonzes use it 

 as the foundation of their ambrosia, and picture their 

 gods witli lin-chi in their hands. The "five fruits" are 

 peach (sign of love, because it blossoms in winter i. apri- 

 cot, plum, chestnut, and jujube. The wild apricot is 

 valuable I'm' the nil extracted from its kernels. The first 

 came into use, say tin Chinese botany books, in our 



fourteenth century, A g 1 and wise physician lived in 



a district so poor that lie scarcely ever get a fei : so, 

 having found out the use of apricot oil, he said. "If you 

 can't pay you must do this Lit every patient plant a 



