891 



its source, and widening by degrees along its downward course. 

 From the great beauty of the broad, rich green foliage, which, being 

 slightly fleshy or succulent, has a peculiarly cool, refreshing effect, 

 few plants are better suited for trellis-work or covering arbours than 

 Tamus communis, as it climbs to a considerable length, and affords a 

 good shade. The staminate plant, as being more elegant in flower, 

 should be chosen in preference to the pistillate, or both grown toge- 

 ther for variety, and were it not a native, and therefore despised and 

 disregarded, it would probably have been long since as much a fa- 

 vourite in British gardens as its near relative the Hottentot Bread 

 (Testudinaria elephantipes, Tamus elephant. L'Her.) of the Cape, is 

 in our conservatories, since it is quite as handsome as that, w T ith the 

 additional advantage of being perfectly hardy. I once recollect to 

 have seen in America, in a part of that continent where the species 

 was not found wild, our common Bittersweet (Solarium Dulcamara) 

 used for covering a dead wall, and very gracefully it fulfilled the com- 

 mission imposed on it by the planter. Were this species not to be 

 seen in almost every hedge, and had it but come to us like the Box- 

 thorn (Li/cium barbarum), absurdly called Tea tree, from a foreign 

 land, it would have supplanted that formal shrub, to which it is so 

 closely allied, by the greater freedom of its growth and much hand- 

 somer foliage. 



The order Taniaceae is quite superfluous, not admissible even as a 

 sub-order or tribe (Tamese) of Dioscoreaceae. Tamus is in fact an 

 intermediate genus connecting the latter order with Smilaceae, but 

 more closely allied to the yams than to the Sarsaparillas, differing 

 from Dioscorea chiefly in its baccate fruit, and globose, not com- 

 pressed seeds destitute of a wing or border. But Testudinaria, which 

 has the most intimate relation possible to Tamus, and was even once 

 referred to that genus, has the fructification of Dioscorea; and the 

 pulpy pericarp of Tamus covers a thin membranous capsule of three 

 cells with, imperfect dissepiments from the middle of each cell, quite 

 unconnected, or but very slightly attached to the pericarp, from which 

 it may readily be squeezed out entire when ripe, or dissected out 

 when green. Our Tamus might indeed be properly called wild or 

 English yam (for to the Bryony it has no botanical relation whatever), 

 so much does it resemble that tropical esculent in its root, leaves, and 

 general structure, and I have every reason to believe in its edible and 

 nutritive qualities were they fairly put to the test of experiment. The 

 root is very large and thick, consisting, like the yam, of irregular fusi- 

 form or digitate tubers, beset with wiry fibres ; externally light brown 



