226 Notes and Gleanings. 



i>- 



highly ornamental, and even useful, appear to be really little known. For 

 one, I frankly confess myself a stranger among the Soianums. So strikingly 

 anomaV)us are the plants included in the natural order, that the whole appears to 

 be a mystery. Grouped here together, the wholesome and deleterious, the beau- 

 tiful and the unattractive, find strange brotherhood and fellowship. In some of 

 the species, botanists represent a certain portion of the plant as being positively 

 poisonous, while the remaining part is described as not only palatable, but health- 

 ful and nutritious. 



And then, too, the fruit, bearing alike the seeds of life and death, but yet so 

 beautiful and inviting, and produced in such profuse abundance that one is 

 tempted most irresistibly, turn which way he will ? Now, what am I to do ? The 

 warning of the botanist seems everywhere written on leaf, flower, and fruit. In 

 the scarlet egg-plant, on the beautiful berries of the S. pyracaitthum, — fine spe- 

 cimens of which graced my grounds during the last season, — and even in the 

 purple flesh of the plum-like fruit of the S. esculentum, there is something which 

 seems to say, " Beware ! " and, Mr. Rand, I am bewildered. I indulge freely in 

 the use of the tomato, and the purple egg-plant is always welcome to my table ; 

 but beyond these I proceed with wary steps. Though I have repeatedly tasted 

 of the fruit of the black nightshade with impunity, and though I regard the scar- 

 let berries of the bittersweet as being quite as harmless as the berries of the 

 common potato, still I think it often difficult to discriminate between the innocent 

 and the injurious. That 



"Each fruit may have its poison, too," 



is eminently applicable to plants of this family. 



I am aware these somewhat utilitarian notes are not quite in accordance with 

 the spirit of the article before me ; but visitors will ask the properties of fruit 

 so alluring, and I know not the answer. 



As decorative plants, the soianums can hardly be surpassed. Besides this, 

 the field is new, and I thank Mr. Rand, not only for the names and descriptions 

 of the kinds considered most desirable, but for the suggestions with regard to 

 propagation and culture. 



I should be gratified, could I look over the sixty or more species alluded to as 

 being found in the city gardens of Paris ; and it is to be hoped that, through 

 Mr. Rand, or some person equally competent to make the selection, we may soon 

 share in the new beauty such a collection would add to the public and private 

 gardens of this country. 



Rhododendrons. — Really, their culture would seem to grow more and more 

 easy. Mr. Parsons has told us that the common idea that they require a care- 

 fully prepared bed of peat is incorrect ; and then Mr. Manning comes to tell us 

 how he makes them grow in Ohio in limestone soils ; and now Mr. Hovey informs 

 us that there is no necessity for the trouble of picking off" the seed-pods. Well, 

 the easier the better ; for I do not think it would be possible for me to have too 

 many of these magnificent flowers. But best of all is Mr. Hovey's statement, 

 that, with the exception of a few kinds, he cultivates only seedlings. So all we 

 have to do is to get a few good kinds, and then go to work to multiply them by 

 seed, with the pleasure of watching all the countless varieties into which they 



