6 



SEEDS AXD PLANTS IMPORTED. 



attracting attention in the Southwest, and a Kashgar species (No. 

 34780) will be a welcome addition to the collections which are being 

 propagated for distribution there. 



Among forage grasses Poa paUens (No. 34807), from Argentina, 

 said to resemble Kentucky bluegrass, and Eragrostis superba (No. 

 34818\ one of the best native South African pasture grasses of the 

 liigh veld, where there are only 10 inches of rainfall, are worthy of 

 special mention. A certain interest attaches to the introduction of 

 Stevia rehaudiana (No. 34883), as this is the plant which several 

 years ago thrilled the sugar-manufacturing world with its supposed 

 possibilities. It was discovered, however, that the sweetness, which 

 was said to be 16 times that of cane sugar, was produced by a glycerin 

 and not by a new sugar. 



The huge-fruited papaya (No. 34777) and a dwarf form which 

 fruits when 7 feet high (No. 34903) from Yucatan, maybe useful for 

 the large amount of papain they can produce, even though their 

 fruits may be too large to ship well. 



A new and spineless holly (No. 34836), one of Mr. E. H. Wilson's 

 discoveries in central China, with slender flexible branches and 

 leaves 4 to 5 inches long, will probably become popular wherever it 

 proves hardy. A beautiful red-flowered variety of Leptospermum 

 scoparium (No. 34853) from New Zealand, which will thrive in the 

 citrus belt, and Sterculia quadrifida (No. 34873), with briUiant crim- 

 son pods, from Queensland, will be welcomed by the residents of 

 Florida and California. 



The breeders interested in the improvement of our plums and 

 cherries will be glad to have plants of the wild plum of the Maritime 

 Alps, Prunus hrigantina (No. 34851). 



Those experimenters who have already grown male vines of the 

 Chinese yangtaw, Actinidia chinensis (No. 35133), wiU be glad to 

 plant out a specimen grown from cuttings of a female vine which 

 fruited in Chelsea, London, in 1911. 



Our already large collection of oriental persimmons has been 

 enriched by three new kaki varieties (Nos. 34970 to 34972), among 

 which is a large-fruited form used for drying purposes. The best 

 dried persimmons are almost as palatable as dried figs. 



It is to be hoped that somewhere in Florida amateurs can grow 

 the curious ear flower of the Aztecs (No. 35039), used by them to 

 flavor their chocolate perhaps centuries before the Spaniards landed 

 in Mexico. 



The new edible bean of Togoland (No. 34916), which buries its 

 pods quite as the peanut does, and an undetermined plant from 

 Angola, which produces edible tubers like potatoes (No. 34913), will 

 appeal to the curious among our experimenters and may have unsus- 

 pected possibilities in them. 



