26 OENAMENTAL FOLIAGE PLANTS. 



are more liable to attack. There is no better safeguardL 

 against any serious attacks of insects than keeping up- 

 a vigorous state of health in the plants, and maintaining 

 strict cleanliness in the structures in which they are 

 grown, and in the various materials brought into use 

 in the course of their cultivation. 



PALMS AND THEIR USES. 



jHE various genera included under the popular 

 name of " Palms " comprise some of the most 

 noble and majestic objects in the whole vegetable 

 kingdom. Their numbers are something extraordinary, 

 both as to species and iudividuals : and although casuaL 

 observers may think they have a somewhat similar 

 appearance, their differences are quite in keeping with 

 their numbers. Thus some have stems little thicker 

 than a straw, and only a few feet in length ; whilst 

 others have stout columnar stems, towering upwards, 

 until they reach a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet in 

 height, their peculiar flabellate or pinnate plume-like leaves- 

 giving them a most noble and picturesque appearance. 

 Others, again, have slender stems which climb over and 

 amongst the forest trees, reaching several hundred feet 

 in length. 



Palms are of immense importance in an economic 

 point of view, and we therefore venture to hope a few 

 remarks upon their produce will not be considered un- 

 interesting or out of place in the iatroductory pages of 

 this work. 



From this order of plants are obtained most of the- 



