274 



STOVE, OR TROPICAL PLANTS. 



The cultivation of tropical plants is much more limited than that of the 

 other exotics we have treated of, and is, consequently, much less under- 

 stood, nor does it appear that they will ever become so generally popular 

 in this country, on account of the great expense attending their culture. 

 There is happily, however, a variety of tastes in regard to plants, as in 

 all other matters, and hence we find some directing their attention to 

 this particular department with much zeal and perseverance. 



Stove plants are exceedingly interesting, and many of them present a 

 most splendid appearance, both in foHage and blossom. Amongst them 

 we may enumerate, as vegetable curiosities, the extraordinary Nepenthes 

 distillatoria, or Chinese pitcher plant, the arborescent ferns of St. Helena 

 and the West Indies, the bread-fruit tree, with many other fruits of great 

 delicacy and richness of flavour ; the palm, some of the leaves of which 

 would cover an entire dwelling, and the fruit of others furnish the food 

 of its inhabitants. Many of our most important vegetable medicines, 

 such as jesuit's-bark, balsam of copavi, cinnamon, jalap, ipecacuana, and 

 many others, are found amongst them : others are intimately connected 

 with the arts; Jamaica ebony, mahogany, lancewood, teak, and the 

 cotton-tree have become amongst our most valuable commercial importa- 

 tions ; and as articles almost indispensable for food may be mentioned 

 coffee, sago, chocolate, pepper, arrowroot, sugar, and ginger, and all the 

 other spices. 



Stoves have hitherto been considered as of two kinds only, viz., the 

 dry stove, and the humid, or moist stove ; and indeed this distinction has 

 been far from being sufficiently attended to. In the former are cultivated 

 plants requiring a temperature varying from a minimum of sixty degrees 

 to ninety degrees as a maximum, and notwithstanding this great heat, 

 requiring, or rather receiving, comparatively but little water ; while the 

 other, with a corresponding high temperature, can scarcely be kept too 

 moist. 



The improvements of the present age have suggested the propriety of 



