224 



SELECT PLANTS READILY ELIGIBLE 



Secale cereale, Linne.* 



The Rye. Orient, but perhaps wild only in the country 

 between the Caspian and Black Seas. Mentioned here as 

 the hardiest of all grain-plants for our highest alpine regions. 

 There are annual and biennial varieties, while a few allied 

 species, hitherto not generally used for fodder or cereal 

 cultiu-e, are perennial. The Rye, though not so nutiitious as 

 wheat, furnishes a most wholesome well-flavoured bread, 

 which keeps for many days, and is most extensively used in 

 Middle and North Europe and Asia. The grain moreover 

 can be reared in poor soil and cold climates, where wheat 

 will no longer thiive. In produce of grain Rye is not 

 inferior to wheat in colder countries, while the yield of 

 straw is larger, and the culture less exhaustive. It is a 

 hardy cereal, not readily subject to disease, and can be grown 

 on some kinds of peaty or sandy or moory ground. The 

 sowing must not be effected at a period of much wetness. 

 Wide sand-tracts would be uninhabitabe, if it were not for the 

 facility to provide human sustenance from this grateful corn. 

 It dislikes moist ground. Sandy soil gives the best grain. 

 It is a very remarkable fact, that since ages in some tracts of 

 Europe, Rye has been prolifically cultivated from year to 

 year without interruption. In this respect Rye stands 

 favourably alone among alimentary plants. It furnishes in 

 cold countries also the earliest green-fodder, and the return 

 is large. Dr. Sender observed in cultivated turf-heaths with 

 much humus, that the spikelets produce three or even four 

 fertile florets, and thus each spike will yield up to eighty 

 beautiful seeds, Langethal recommends for argillaceous soils 

 a mixture of early varieties of wheat and rye, the united crops 

 furnishing gTain for excellent bread. When the Rye-grain 

 becomes attacked by Cordyceps purpurea (Fr.), or very similar 

 species of fungi, then it becomes dangerously unwholesome, but 

 then also a very important medicinal substance, namely Ergot, 

 is obtained. The biennial Wallachian variety of Rye can be 

 mown or depastured prior to the season of its forming 

 gTain. In alpine regions Wallachian Rye is sown with 

 pine-seeds, for shelter of the pine-seedlings in the fii'st year. 



Secale creticum, Linne. 



Though probably only a variety of S. cereale (L.), it deserves 

 specially to be mentioned as furnishing a bread of pecuKar taste. 



Sechium edule, Swartz. 



West India. The Chocho or Chayota. The large root of 

 this climber can be consumed as a culinary vegetable, while 

 the good-sized fruits are also edible. The plant comes in 

 climates like ours to perfection. 



