78 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



their foliage of the Gornacece cultivated in our gardens are the Aucubas, 

 chiefly A. japonica ^ (fig. 54-56), whose persistent leaves are green 

 or variegated with yellow or white, ^ and which now abounds with red 

 fruit ' most graceful in effect. The taste of their flesh is sweetish at 

 complete maturity ; but that of their seed is disagreeable. A closely 

 allied species, A. himalaica* has also been cultivated for many years. 

 Since they have been raised from seed, both have given a very con- 

 siderable number of forms. 



> Thunb. Tl. Jap. 64 ; Ic. Ft. Jap. t. 12, 13. 

 — Banks, Kcempf. Icon. t. 6. — DC. Prodr. iv. 

 274.— Sims, Bot. Mag. t. 1197.— Hook. Bot. 

 Mag, t. 5512. — Aukuba, K^mpf. Aman. Exot. 

 Vf> (Aoki). 



^ These horticultural varieties are sometimes 

 wrongly considered as species. 



'^ Although flourishing in our gardens since 

 the introduction of the female plant into Europe 

 in 1783, none were fertile and none were pro- 

 duced till the recent importation of male indi- 

 viduals ; so that this plant furnishes one of the 

 hest refutations of the dangerous theory of 

 parthenogenesis still defended by some botanists, 



particularly by Me. Deoaisne. What is re- 

 markable (and which has been stated of several 

 ether plants with dioecious flowers) is that A. 

 Japonica, before the introduction of the male 

 plants, sometimes produced fruit of tolerable 

 size, of red colour and apparently healthy, with 

 sometimes a yellowish rudiment of an embryo. 

 But these unfecundated seeds did not germinate, 

 whilst very numerous germinations are obtained 

 when the female flowers can be subjected to 

 the influence of the pollen, or the latter carried 

 to them by insects. 



* Hook. f. Illustr. Simal. Plants, t. 12. 



