ABELIA 73 



dington. Professor Charles Morren, Lie"ge, was the first 

 to produce fruit of it in quantity. He obtained fifty-four 

 flowers on one plant, which he fertilised artificially, and 

 every one developed a pod. Morren suggested that Vanilla 

 might be made to pay as a cultivated crop in this country 

 if the plants were properly grown and the flowers artifici- 

 ally fertilised. In recent times Vanilla pods have been 

 produced in quantity by plants grown at Syon, Kew, and 

 elsewhere. The plant is worth growing in any stove with 

 a view to its fruiting, the odour of the " beans " when they 

 are ripe being particularly agreeable. The rope-like stems 

 grow to a length of 20 feet or more. They have white 

 aerial roots, and oblong fleshy leaves about 8 inches long. 

 The flowers are produced in short racemes from the leaf 

 axils, and are Cattleya-like ; and 4 inches across, cream 

 yellow, with a few lines of orange on the lip. The beans 

 are about 8 inches long. The plant requires moist tropical 

 conditions. It will cling to a wall by means of its roots, 

 or it can be trained on wires under a roof. There is a 

 prettily variegated form of it in cultivation. 



CHAPTER XV 

 ALPHABETICAL LIST OF GENERA 



IN the following chapter the genera are taken in alpha- 

 betical order. The most useful species are selected for 

 remark in each case in the hope that these will be more 

 useful to amateurs than printing exhaustive lists. The 

 cultural advice is based on knowledge obtained and long 

 experience. 



ABELIA 



The species of Abelia are showy shrubs of the Honey- 

 suckle order, which in most parts of the country require 



