RESURRECTION PLANTS 



RETINISPORA 



2921 



4. Several species of Mesembryanthemum are known 

 to be hygroscopic. According to Kerner & Oliver, 

 "the capsular fruits of these plants remain closed in 

 dry weather; but the moment they are moistened the 

 valves covering the ventral sutures of the fruit-loculi 

 open back, dehiscence takes place along the ventral 



3367. The plant shown in Fig. 3366 when "resurrected." 



sutures, and the seeds, hitherto retained in a double 

 shroud, are washed out of the loculi by the rain." It is 

 doubtful whether these capsules are offered in the trade. 



WILHELM MILLER. 



The cultivation of resurrection plants. 



Anastatica is sometimes grown for curiosity or for 

 botanical purposes, but the plant is anything but orna- 

 mental. It has often been grown for classes in botany, 

 sowing the seed in February in pots and keeping the 

 plants in pots all summer. Bottom heat is not neces- 

 sary at any stage, at least in America. The plant could 

 be grown in a window-garden. The seeds may be sown 

 in February in 4-inch pots, using a light, sandy soil, in 

 a house with a temperature of 60 F. As soon as the 

 seedlings are large enough they are transplanted into 

 other 4-inch pots, three plants to a pot. 



The Selaginella lepidophylla is perennial. It is rarely 

 cultivated in greenhouses for. ornament, like the 

 evergreen kinds of selaginella. It is grown chiefly in 

 botanic gardens or by fanciers of ferns and selagi- 

 nellas, as it is by no means the most beautiful mem- 

 ber of the genus. The writer grew a plant of it for 

 four years, and once saw at one of the botanical 

 gardens a plant which through long cultivation had 

 developed a stem almost a foot 

 high. It looked like a miniature 

 tree-fern, except of course that 

 the fronds were arranged in a 

 dense rosette, which gave the 

 fronds a flat rather than a pen- 

 dulous appearance. Whether the 

 plants received directly from 

 Texas have a crop of spores on 

 them is a question. The spores 

 do not discharge when the plants 

 are wetted. Many extravagant 

 statements are made about the 

 bird's - nest moss. The dried 

 plants offered by the trade will 

 turn green and grow unless they 

 are too old or have been kept 

 dry too long. They would prob- 

 ably not grow if kept over more 

 than one season. They cannot 



be dried again and again indefi- bracts roU out and make 

 nitely and still remain alive, a flat star-shaped figure. 



If a plant has been grown in a pot three or four years 

 and is then dried off it will die. Most persons who grow 

 these plants as curiosities place them in a bowl of water 

 with perhaps a little sand and a few pebbles. The 

 water causes them to turn green and they will grow for 

 a time. Then if taken out of the water they may be 

 kept dry for a time and the process repeated, but each 

 time the plant loses its lower or outer circles of fronds 

 much faster than new ones are made and at about the 

 third time the plant is commonly used up. 



There is a fern (Polypodium polypodioides, page 

 2744) which could just as truly be called a resurrec- 

 tion plant. It is a native of the southern states, where 

 it grows up the trunks of trees and over rocks and 

 stones. At certain times it is dried up and parched, but 

 as soon as moisture conditions are restored it looks as 

 fresh as ever. In warm dry countries there are ferns 

 of various genera that dry up and then are resurrected 

 quickly when wet weather comes; some of these are 

 very interesting. EDWARD J. CANNING. 



RETARDING is the opposite of forcing, and con- 

 sists in keeping plants in cold storage, thereby prevent- 

 ing them from growing during their natural season. Its 

 object is to supplement natural methods and forcing 

 in order to produce the same thing the year round. 

 The lily-of-the-valley is one of the plants of the first 

 importance which may be retarded in commercial estab- 

 lishments. There is sufficient demand for these flowers 

 all the year round to justify the expense of cold storage. 

 Lily-of-the-valley "pips" may be taken from cold stor- 

 age and forced into bloom in three weeks. Plants that 

 have been retarded need very little heat when they are 

 allowed to grow; they are eager to start, and a tempera- 

 ture of 45 to 50 is sufficient. Lilium spetiosum, L. 

 longiflorum, and L. auratum will bloom in ten to twelve 

 weeks from cold storage; Azalea mollis in three to four 

 weeks; spireas in about five weeks. Sea-kale and lilacs 

 have also been retarded with profit. Goldenrod has been 

 kept in an icehouse all summer and flowered for Christ- 

 mas with good results. The art of retarding plants 

 is making progress at present, and with the growth 

 of popular taste for flowers the list of retarded plants 

 may be greatly extended in the future. See A. F. 

 16:654, 655 (1900). 



RETINISPORA. Often but not originally spelled 

 Retinospora. A genus of conifers founded originally by 

 Siebold and Zuccarini on the two Japanese species of 

 Chamsecyparis, chiefly distinguished from the Ameri- 

 can species by the resinous canals of the seeds (from 

 Greek, retine, resin, and spora, seed). Afterward the 

 genus was united with Chamaecyparis, but in horticul- 

 tural nomenclature the name is applied to a number of 

 juvenile forms of Thuja and Chamaecyparis, chiefly those 

 introduced from Japan. As these juvenile forms all 

 resemble each other very much, indeed much more 

 than do the typical forms to which they belong, it is not 

 strange that they should have been considered to be dis- 

 tinct species and even to belong to a separate genus. 

 Even botanists failed to recognize the true relation of 

 these forms and went so far as to place one of them in 

 the genus Juniperus. With the exception of Retinispora 

 ericoides, which C. Koch recognized as the juvenile 

 form of Thuja occidentalis, the origin of these juvenile 

 forms remained doubtful until L. Beissner, after having 

 carefully studied the subject for years, disclosed the 

 relationship of the various forms. He showed by experi- 

 ment that it is possible to raise the same form by making 

 cuttings from seedlings which have still retained their 

 primordial foliage, and he also published cases in which 

 larger plants of these doubtful forms have been observed 

 accidentally to develop branches with the foliage of the 

 typical form. See, also, Gt. 1879, pp. 109 and 172; 1881, 

 pp. 210 and 299, and 1882, p. 152. 



There are four of these juvenile forms generally in 



