276 



JOURNAL OF HORTIOULTDRE AND OOi'TAQE GARDENER. 



[ April 8, 1876. 



Lane. These trees do the planter great credit. Tree-lifting 

 tnaobines taken at their best are eimply remarkable for their 

 mechanical powers, and as such are capable of removing very 

 great weights, regardless of the injury to the roots of the trees 

 operated upon. 



The removal of large trees has been less popular of late 

 than it used to be, yet I trust I have said enough to make it 

 understood that a very large specimen may be removed with 

 very homely materials. Small trees will always repay the 

 planter in a better way than large trees, and the chances are 

 that at the end of ten or a dozen years the emaller trees will 

 have overtaken those which were of great size when removed. 

 It is well, however to know how large trees may be successfully 

 removed when such special work is required to be done. — 

 John Eodson. 



CAPTAIN COOK'S OR KERQUELEN LAND 

 CABBAGE (Pkinglea antiscoebutila). 



In the interesting despatch from Captain Fairfax, of H.M.S. 

 " Volage " (dated from Kerguelen Island, or as Captain Cook 

 happily termed it, the lele of Desolation), among other items 

 there is one of some horticultural interest. It is this, " the 

 Kerguelen Cabbage, which grows in great abundance close to 

 the sea, is issued to the men several times a-week." Many of 

 our horticultural friends doubtless stood up from the perusal 

 of the despatch with their curiosity somewhat on edge to know 

 something more of the Cabbage which merited from Captain 

 Fairfax this specific and honourab'e mention, and which more- 

 over as yet finds no place among the varieties enumerated in 

 the exhaustive lists of the fattest of spring catalogues. In 

 view of the foregoing, and the fact that (thanks to the " Chal- 

 lenger " Expedition) living plants of this most interesting 

 of Cabbages are now amongst us, a few words regarding this 

 curious plant may not be unacceptable to our readers. A 

 century or so has elapsed since Captain Cook touched at 

 Kerguelen Island, which had been discovered by a Frenchman 

 of that name in 1772, By reason of its unmitigatedly desolate 

 and inhospitable aspect Captain Cook would have called it the 

 lele of Desolation, but did not wish to rub Mr. Kerguelen of 

 the honour. On approaching these de.solate shores not a 

 single tree or shrub, nor the least sign of any such met the 

 eye of the navigator, but at some short distance there was 

 some appearance of verdure. With respect to this, Mr. Ander- 

 son, who accompanied Captain Cook as surgeon and naturalist, 

 wrote, "The verdure which appears when at a little distance 

 from the shore would flatter one with the expectation of meet- 

 ing with some herbage, but in this we were much deceived, for 

 on landing it was found that this lively colour was occasioned 

 only by one small plant, not unlike some sorts of Saxifrage, 

 which grows in large spreading tufts up the hills." Mr. Ander- 

 son then introduces our plant on the scene. " There is," he 

 says, " another plant plentifully scattered about the boggy de- 

 clivities, which grows near the height of 2 feet, and not much 

 unlike a small Cabbage when it has shot into seeds ; the leaves 

 about the roots are numerous, large and rounded, narrower at 

 the base, and ending in a small point. Those on the stalks 

 are much smaller, oblong and pointed. The stalks, often 

 three or four, all rise separately from the root, and send up 

 long cylindrical heads of small flowers. It has not only the 

 appearance, but the acrid, watery taste of the antiscorbutic 

 plants, and yet differs materially from the whole tribe ; so that 

 we look on it as a production extremely peculiar to the place. 

 We eat it frequently raw, and found it almost like New Zea- 

 land Scurvy Grass ; but it seemed to acquire a rank flavour by 

 being boiled, which, however, some of our people did not per- 

 ceive, and esteem it good." He then adds — " If it could be 

 introduced into our kitchen gardens, it would in all probability 

 improve so far by cultivation as to be an excellent pot herb." 

 We give this extract in full, because it is the earliest descrip- 

 tion of the plant that we know of, as also an account of 

 botanical acumen which it shows the writer of it to have 

 possessed. The practical suggestion with which it closes re- 

 mains yet to be put to the test ; for until the naturalists 

 attached to the " Challenger " Expedition succeeded in pro- 

 curing and sending home seeds of it last year, no previous 

 scientific visit to the Isle of Desolation was paid at a time 

 when seed was procurable. 



When during the Antarctic voyage of the " Erebus " aud 

 "Terror," the island was visited by Dr. Hooker, it was at a 

 season when, as he tells us, he failed in seeing the flowers ex- 

 cept in a broken and fragmentary form. In that magnificent 



work, his " Botany of the Antarctic Voyage," he alludes to 

 this plant as being perhaps the "most interesting " procured 

 during the whole voyage, " growing as it does upon an island 

 the remotest of any from a continent, and yielding, besides 

 this esculent, only seventeen other flowering plants." Dr. 

 Hooker describes it as having " a long, stout rhizome, very 

 similar to that of the Horseradish, and not altogether unlike 

 that of the common Cabbage, which is, however, annual, while 

 both Pringlea and Horseradish are perennial." In the form 

 of the head of leaves to the common Cabbage Dr. Hooker says 

 the resemblance is " most striking," and so is " the use both 

 are put to," but here, he adds, the " analogy ends," as the in- 

 florescence and the part of the plant from which it proceeds 

 are quite distinct. Describing further on, Dr. Hooker says the 

 rhizomes are from 3 to 1 feet long and 2 inches in diameter, 

 full of a spongy, fibrous texture, having a horseradish flavour 

 and bearing at the end " an extremely large head of leaves, 

 sometimes 18 inches across, so like common Cabbage that if 

 growing in an English garden in company with their name- 

 sakes they would not excite any particular attention." 



As in the ordinary Cabbages, the inner leaves form a dense 

 white heart, which Dr. Hooker says tastes "like Mustard and 

 Cress, but much coarser," the entire foliage abounding with 

 an essential oil, " pale yellow, highly pungent, aud confined 

 in vessels which run parallel to the leaf, and are very con- 

 spicuous if the head be cut transversely." During the entire 

 stay of the " Erebus " and "Terror" in the dreary abode of 

 the Pringlea, Dr. Hooker tells us daily use was made of the 

 plant either cooked by itself or boiled with ship's beef and poik. 

 The essential oil above alluded to, he adds, gives a peculiar 

 flavour, which, however, "neither officers nor men disliked," 

 and which rendered it more wholesome than common Cabbage, 

 " for it never causes heartburn or other symptoms, which the 

 latter does." As remarked at the commencement of this 

 article, it is to the " Challenger" Expedition we are indebted 

 for the seeds from which the young plants now iu Britain have 

 been raised, as also for the more intimate knowledge of the 

 botanical structure of its flowers, perfect specimens of them, 

 forwarded by Mr. Mosley, having reached England for the first 

 time in the course of last year. The chief peculiarities of the 

 flowers, as compared with others of the order, appear to be 

 the ab.»ence of petals and of the usual glaads between the bases 

 of the stamens. Through the kindness of Dr. Balfour one or 

 more young plants are iu possession of Dr. Moore at Glasuevin, 

 and from the same quarter Dr. Edward Perceval Wright, Pro- 

 fessor of Botany, T.C.D., also had a couple of plants, which, 

 kept in a cold frame iu his garden, have, we are glad to say, 

 come safely through the winter. Of these we hope to see and 

 say more by-and-by.— (Zrts7i Farmers' Gazette.} 



PORTRAITS OF PLANTS, FLOWERS, AND FRUITS. 



PuYLLOcACTCs liiroEMis. Nat. ord., Cactacca;. Linn., Icos- 

 andria Monogynia. — Flowers crimson. " A native of Honduras, 

 whence it was introduced by G. Ure Skinner, Esq., in 1839. 

 He sent it to the late Sir Charles Lemon, who had a famous 

 collection at Carcleugb, in Cornwall ; and it has been long 

 cultivated at Kew, where it flowered in January 1874." — (Z?o(. 

 Man., t. ()15C.) 



PtNTSTE.MON ANiiBBUixoiDEB. Nat. ord , Scrophulariaoeoo. 

 Linn., Didynamia Angiospermia. — " A very charming shrubby 

 half-hardy plant, discovered in California by Dr. Coulter nearly 

 half a century ago, and, as far as I am aware, found by no one 

 since till Bolandcr gathered it in the Santa Maria Valley, 

 San Diego. It is remarkable for the lemon-yellow colour of 

 its flowers iu a genus of which most of the species are red, 

 violet, purplish, or blue, colours which rarely occur along with 

 yellow in one group of closely-allied vegetable forms, though 

 instances do occur, as Gentian. 



" Pentstemon antirrhinoides flowered at the Itoyal Gardens, 

 Kew, in September, 1S74, from specimens sent by Mr. Niven 

 of the Hull Botanic Gardens."— (/ii'i?., (. (5157.) 



Pyhus I'BUNiroLiA. Nat. ord., Kosacese. Linn., Icosandria 

 Monupynia. — " It is singular that no good figure should exist 

 of so beautiful and well-known a tree as this, and one intro- 

 duced before 1758, which can only bo accounted for by its 

 being usually confounded with the P. baccata, which was not 

 introduced till 1781, and from which its connate styles and 

 totally different fruit, crowned by the persistent calyx, at once 

 distinguish it. I have seen no native sf-ejimens, and though 

 stated by the earlier authors, including De Candolle, to be a 

 native of Siberia, Ledebour does cot seem to have known it, 



