44 



POPULAR GARDEN BOTANY. 



being known, but it was of full size. In the c Journal of 

 Botany/ speaking of this specimen, there is the following 

 account : — " Its flowering-stem grew to the height of nine- 

 teen feet six inches; the stem had twenty-four branches, 

 and these were again subdivided into eight secondary 

 branches, each terminated by a cluster of flowers ; the num- 

 ber of flowers may be estimated at about four thousand." 

 The growth of the flowering-stem is very rapid and vigorous 

 when once it begins, and the same rapid growth is exhibited 

 in other species also, for Sir W. Hooker records in the 

 e Journal of Botany' that a specimen of A. vivipara in Kew 

 Gardens produced a flowering-stem " resembling a gigantic 

 shoot of young asparagus, which grew at first at the rate of 

 two feet in the twenty-four hours." A. Americana has become 

 almost naturalized in Italy, Sicily, and Spain, where it is 

 planted in vases as an ornament to terraces ; but here it 

 generally requires shelter in a dry greenhouse : the plant 

 is stemless, and the leaves toothed and spiny. The other 

 species, which can also be cultivated there, are C. Mitteri, 

 atrovirens, Mexicana, soholifera, potatorum, etc., from dif- 

 ferent parts of South America and Mexico. 



In warm climates the plants are supposed to flower when 

 about fifteen years old, and then, putting out offsets, to die. 



