48 Select Plants for Industrial Culture and 



membranes into increased secretions. Hardy in Norway to lat. 

 71 10 [Schuebeler]. In any sub-alpine regions this plant would 

 particularly establish its value. The surprisingly gigantic Angelica 

 ursina (Regel ; Angelophyllum ursinum, Ruprecht) forms a con- 

 spicuous feature in the landscape of Kamtschatka and Sachalin. 

 It is delineated on plate XVI. of Lindley and Moore's Treasury of 

 Botany ; it ought to become an important plant for annual scenic 

 culture. 



Arctostaphylos uva ui si, Adanson. 



Europe, Northern Asia and North-America, in colder regions, 

 extending to the arctics. A medicinal small shrub, which could 

 best be reared in the heath-moors of alpine tracts. Long known 

 as a powerful diuretic. Valuable also as a honey -yielding plant 



[Cook]. 



Areng-a saccharifera. La Billardiere. 



India, Cochinchina, Philippines and, according to Doederlein, 

 also most Southern Japan. This Palm attains a height of 40 feet. 

 The black fibres of the leaf-stalks are adapted for cables and ropes, 

 intended to resist wet very long. The juice convertible into toddy 

 or sugar ; the young kernels made with syrup into preserves. 

 This Palm dies off as soon as it has produced its fruit ; the stem 

 then becomes hollow, and can be used for spouts and troughs of 

 great durability. The pith supplies sago, about 150 Ibs. from a tree, 

 according to Roxburgh. Hardier than Cocos iiucifera. 



Arg ania Sideroxylon, Eoemer and Schultes. 



Western Barbary, on dry hills. ; ' The Argan-tree." Its growth 

 is generally slow, but it is a long-lived tree. Though comparatively 

 low in stature, its foliage occasionally spreads to a circumference 

 of 220 feet. It sends out suckers from the root. The fruit serves 

 as food for cattle in Morocco ; but in Australia the kernels would 

 be more likely to be utilised by pressing an oil from them. Height 

 of tree exceptionally 70 feet. Produces fruit also in the clime of 

 Tasmania [Abbott]. Commences to bear fruit when about 6 years 

 old [C. Moore], and thence bears regularly and has more or less 

 fruits on it throughout the year. Dryander gave already a 

 scientific account of this tree in the transactions of the Linnean 

 Society, II., 225. 



Aristida prodigriosa, Welwitsch.* 



Angola, on the driest sand-hills. A perennial fodder-grass, of 

 which the discover speaks in glowing terms of praise. In the 

 West-African desert-country, in places devoid of almost all other 

 vegetation, the zebras, antelopes and hares resort with avidity to 

 this grass ; it also affords there in the dry season almost the only 

 fodder for domestic grazing animals. Moreover, this seems to 

 indicate, that the closely cognate A. plumosa, L. and A. ciliata, 



