1883.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



plant has fronds three feet high, including the 

 stipes, which are a foot long, numerously devel- 

 oped from a short decumbent caudex. The pinnae 

 are upwards of 4 inches long in the broadest part, 

 and terminate in a densely fingered tuft of about 

 fifty long, narrow, acute divisions, the apex of the 

 frond dividing into two or more branches consist- 

 ing of about seventy of these small finger-like 

 Segments. Its bright green color, its small pin- 

 nules, and the bold crested apices with their nu- 

 merous narrow divisions, give this plant a singu- 

 larly elegant character, and mark it out as a very 

 ornamental useful fern for the decoration of the 

 hothouse.' " 



BowiEA voLUBiLis. — Some years ago our 

 friends of the Cambridge Botanic Garden, gave the 

 editor a specimen of this singular plant, which he 

 keeps and treasures not only for its graceful char- 

 acter as a garden ornament, but also for its botani- 

 cal contrasts with its near neighbors, the asparagus 

 and similar plants. The common asparagus would 

 be resrarded as a beautiful garden ornament if it 



Myrsiphyllum does, it would be very valuable to 

 cut flower people. But in the writer's experience 

 it dies down in autumn, and positively refuses to 

 push up in the winter. Messrs. Haage & Schmidt, 

 of Erfurt, have recently introduced it to commerce. 



DuR.'VNu's Oak. — This species, named by Prof. 

 Buckley for the late Elias Durand, of Philadel- 

 phia, has recently been re-discovered by Mr. Ch. 

 Mohr in Alabama. It is now regarded as a good 

 species. 



Remarkable Discovery in Textile Fibres. 

 — Cotton is the only vegetable product which 

 yields an ultimate fibre which can be spun directly 

 without further process. The fibre of hemp, flax 

 and other plants is compound. Ekman has dis- 

 covered and patented a process by which these 

 compound fibres can be cheaply reduced to ulti- 

 mate ones. The effect of this discovery on cotton 

 culture is looked forward to with much interest. 



Kalmia and Sheep. — Dr. Thomas F. Wood, 

 the distinguished physician of Wilmington, North 

 Carolina, tried to kill a young sheep by feeding it 

 Kalmia angustifolia, but failed. It would not eat 

 it, though hunger was an aid to the effort. Then a 

 decoction of the leaves and fruit was forced down 

 its throat, but it \omited, and more and stronger 

 was given to it. After several days of desperate 

 illness, persistent vomiting, &c., it finally recovered. 

 The doctor believes, from his observations on the 

 case, that, though the shrub is a gastric irritant, 

 and has some intoxicating properties, it would be 

 difficult for a sheep to eat enough of it to cause 

 death. On the whole, a morbid appetite might in- 

 duce a sheep to eat a great deal of it, and thus 

 cause death, which, however, he thinks, must be 

 rare. The paper is in the February number of the 

 American Agriculturist. 



SCRAPS AND QUERIES. 



Bowiea volubilis. 



were not so common as a vegetable. Its foliage is 

 surely graceful, and its red berries in autumn are 

 equal to the holly in rich beauty. 



This plant, Bowiea volubilis, has dry seed ves- 

 sels, devoid of color, and the foliage is not as fine 

 or feathery as the asparagus, but its twining habit 

 gives it some advantages over its kitchen garden 

 relative. The root is not fibrous as in asparagus, 

 but round like an onion, though as solid as a gla- 

 diolus. If it could be made to grow in the winter 

 ■season, as another neighbor, the " Smilax," or 



The Seasons in Italy. — A correspondent at 

 Venice says: "Wheat can be ripened with us by 

 the end of June', but in Europe it does not as a gen- 

 eral thing ripen before the month of August, and in 

 some parts not before September." 



The American Crab Apple. — J. A. C, Day- 

 ton, Ohio, writes : " Will you kindly tell me, as well 

 as other readers, through the columns of the Gar- 

 deners' Monthly, what are the particular dis- 

 tinctive characters that separate the native Amer- 

 ican crab apple from the original form of the cul- 

 tivated apple, or in fact, from all other species of 



