2 THE PRACTICAL GARDENER. 



arable, may be mentioned as valuable medicines ; as also 

 Quassia Amara, the bitter of porter, so much used in the 

 making of that liquor. Connected with the useful arts, we 

 may notice lance-wood, mahogany, log-wood, cotton-tree, and 

 Indian-rubber ; and, as vegetable curiosities, may be noticed 

 the air-plants, arborescent ferns, and that most extraordinary 

 of all parasitics, Rafflesia Arnoldi, discovered in 1818, in a 

 jingle in Sumatra, by Dr. Arnold, and jointly named after him 

 and the late Sir Stamford Raffles ; the following description 

 of which is to be found in the Transactions of the Linnaean 

 Society : — *' The plant consists of the flower only, having 

 neither leaves, branches, nor roots; the flower is a yard 

 across ; the petals, which are subrotund, being twelve inches 

 from the base to the apex, and it being about a foot from the 

 insertion of the one petal to the opposite one ; the petals are 

 from a fourth to three-fourths of an inch thick, and the nec- 

 tarium, it is supposed, would hold twelve pints. It appears 

 to take its origin in some crack or hollow of the stem, and 

 soon shows itself in the form of a round knob, which, when 

 cut through, exhibits the infant flower, enveloped in numerous 

 bracteal sheaths, which successively open and wither away as 

 the flower enlarges." 



Stoves may be considered as of two kinds : the humid or 

 bark-stove, and the succulent or dry-stove. In the former are 

 cultivated all plants that require a moist, and at the same time 

 a high temperature, while in the latter are cultivated those 

 which can live long without water in a high temperature ; and 

 these are for the most part succulent plants, as Cactus, Eu- 

 phorbia, Aloe, Sec. 



CONSTRUCTION OF THE BARK-STOVE. 



In the construction of a stove-house, calculated for the cul- 

 tivation of tropical plants, much depends upon the taste and 

 object of the owner. Some cultivators prefer small plants, 

 and limited or select collections, whilst others affect large spe- 

 cimens and extensive collections. In the former case, a stove 

 may be constructed to answer every purpose of the owner, 

 differing little from that of the pine house in common use, but 



