758 



mannii)\ Bot. Mag. t. 5199 (var. Neumannii), t. 5255 (var. Chan- 



tinii), t. 5263 (var. V ercliaffelti) ; Nooten, Fl. Java, t. 15 ; 



Belgique Hortic. 1870, t. 17 (vars.); Gartenfl. xxxvii. 1888, 

 t. 1269. 



Old Calabar; and in other parts of West Africa, including 

 Island of St. Thomas and Princes Island. 



A decorative plant from which many handsome varieties 

 have been raised, remarkable for the interchanging form of the 

 two original colours red and white in the leaf. Tubers perennial; 

 poisonous. In La Belgique Hort. xxix. 1879, " Toxicite du 

 Caladium bicolor/' p. 299, it is stated, '* II parait que cette plante 

 qui est generalement cultivee est un des plus grands poisons du 

 regne vegetal." 



Commonly grown in gardens at home in open rich soil. 



Native country not known, it was brought to this country 

 from Madeira, where it is cultivated on account of the beauty of 

 its leaves which grow there to a large size (Bot. Mag. t. 2543) ; 

 said in Hortus Kewensis to have been introduced by Messrs. Lee & 

 Kennedy, Nurserymen at Hammersmith in the year 1773 and 

 flowered in the gardens of Mr. Fonnereau at East Sheen in 1778 

 (I.e. t. 820). 



Common in all the cultivated ravines, Princes Island (Barter, 

 Herb, Kew), 



MoNSTERA, Adams. 



Monstera deliciosa, Liebm. in Kjoeb. Vidensk. Meddel. (1849) 

 p. 19. 



A cKmbing plant 20-30 ft. high. Roots aerial. Leaves 

 1-2 ft. across, leathery, perforated, petioles long. Fruit 6-8 in. 

 long, cone-like, succulent. 



/ZZ.— Gard. Chron. Dec. 4th, 1858, p. 883; Oct. 8th, 1864, 

 p. 962; Fl. & Pom. April 1872, p. 77 {Philodeyidron pertusum) ; 

 Nicholson, Diet. Gard. ii. p. 380, f . 585 ; Preuss, Expedit. Cent, 

 und Siidamer. p. 159 (in fruit Castleton Garden, Jamaica) ; 

 Rev. Hort. Beige, 1904, p. 125; Bailey, Cycl. Hort. iv. p. 2063, 

 i. 2385. 



Native of Mexico, Cultivated in Botanic Gardens, Old Calabar 

 Trinidad and most of the Botanic Gardens in the West 



Indies. 



Fruit edible — the parts, " easily separable from a soft vinous 

 very fragrant pulp which Hes beneath them, are the heads of so 

 many ovaries; when they are removed the lower part of the 

 ovaries, which is the part eaten, can be readily detached from the 

 somewhat woody axis over which they stand in the closest 

 possible order " (Gard. Chron. Dec. 4th, 1858, p. 883, described 

 from fruit ripened at Kew). Succulent fruits edible and have a 

 delicate flavour somewhat resembling that of the Pine-apple 

 (Agric. News, Barbados, Nov. 25th, 1905, p. 359); taste between 

 a pine-apple and a banana (Bailey, Cycl. Hort. iv. p. 2063). 

 Fruits Avere on sale at Covent Garden Market (1905), that 



