MISCELLANEOUS. 
125 
are usually grown as such, for they are not well 
adapted for standards. They flower abundantly 
and early in the season. The flowers are small and 
globular ; many of them, as they hang on the bush, 
looking like little balls. They are in character 
planted as a hedge round a Rosarium, when such 
may be required ; a bank of Scotch Roses also pro- 
duces a good effect. When the plants become 
established in the soil, the stems push laterally 
under ground, often rising to the surface at a con- 
siderable distance from the plant. There are some 
hybrids in this group well worthy of cultivation ; 
the Perpetual Scotch and Stanwell, which bloom 
both in summer and autumn, are the most remark- 
able. 
The Miniature Provence, or Pompon Roses. 
The roses in this group are remarkable for their 
diminutiveness. They are well adapted for edgings 
to the Rosarium, or Rose-clumps generally. They 
are sometimes planted in masses, in which manner 
they look well, as they are of neat growth and 
bloom profusely ; but they do not last long in 
flower. Of the varieties of Pompon Roses, those 
most generally in cultivation are “ Dwarf Bur- 
gundy,” “ De Meaux,” “ Spong,” and “ White 
Burgundy.” — Paul’s Pose Garden. 
Sterculia villosa. The fibre of this plant is 
called Oadal. The genus Sterculia belongs to a 
family ( Sterculiacece ) which abounds in tenacious 
fibre. This, however, is never manufactured into 
cloth ; its use in India is confined to ropes, which, 
when well prepared, are equal in strength to the 
best “ Coir.” The tree is very common in Eastern 
India, and the ropes are readily made ; for the bark, 
or rather all the layers, can be stripped off from the 
bottom to the top of the tree with the greatest 
facility, and fine- pliable ropes may be obtained 
from the inner layers of the bark, whilst the outer 
yields coarse ropes. The ropes are very strong and 
lasting, and are little injured by wet. They are 
used by all the elephant-hunters in the jungles. — 
Hook. Jour. Bot., 27. 
Sterculia guttata. The bark of this tree the 
Malabars convert into a flaxy substance, of which 
the natives of the lower coasts of Wynaad continue 
to make a sort of clothing. The tree is felled, the 
branches lopped off, and the trunk cut into pieces 
of six feet long, a perpendicular incision being 
made in each piece ; the bark is opened and taken 
off whole, chopped, washed, and dried in the sun. 
By these means, and without any further process, 
it becomes fit for the purposes of clothing. — Hook. 
Jour. Bot., 27. 
Boehmeria nivea, or Chinese Grass Cloth Plant. 
A very beautiful fabric is manufactured from the 
fibre of this plant, first imported here in the form 
of handkerchiefs, and more lately to a considerable 
extent, as superior to any other kind of fabric for 
shirts. The genus belongs to the Urticaceous 
(Nettle) family. 
Boehmeria Puya. The fibre of this species has 
been long and extensively used in India for various 
purposes, and when properly dressed, is said to be 
quite equal to the best European flax, while it 
makes better sail-cloth than any other vegetable 
fibre produced in India. Rope formed of it has 
been tested in the arsenal and government dock- 
yards, and found perfectly equal to any and all 
purposes for which cordage made of Russian hemp 
has hitherto been employed. — Hook. Jour. Bot., 26. 
Pucha-pat, or Patchouly. The history of this 
favourite oriental scent, the use of which, in a fluid 
form, has now extended to Europe, being sold in 
the perfumers’ shops. The plant producing it has 
been described by Professor Tenore under the name 
of Pogostemon suavis, and by M. Santelet under 
the name of P. Patchouly, which latter is adopted 
by Mr. Bentham in the Ldbiatce of the 12th volume 
of De Candolle’s Prodromus. It is said to grow wild 
at Penang, and on the opposite shore of the Malay 
peninsula, in Wellesley province. The Arabs use 
and export it more than any other nation. Their 
annual pilgrimship takes up an immense quantity 
of the leaves. They employ it principally for 
stuffing mattresses and pillows, and assert that it is 
very efficacious in preventing contagion and pro- 
longing life. It requires no preparation, being 
simply gathered and dried in the sun. — Hook. 
Jour. Bot., 23. 
Coquilla Nut {Attalea funifera). Few have 
walked the streets of London without remarking 
that of late years those streets are, in places at 
least, kept peculiarly neat and clean by the stiff 
fibres of a new material for making brushes and 
brooms ; those of the machines, as well as those 
employed by hand. These are not made of whale- 
bone, as is generally supposed, but of the coarse 
fibre of a species of Palm {Attalea funifera) which 
grows abundantly in Brazil, and 4s imported to 
Europe extensively from Para, tied up in bundles 
of several feet in length, and sold at the price of 
14 1, the ton, under the native name of Piagaba. 
The fruit, or nuts, are another article of commerce, 
long brought into England under the name of 
Coquilla Nuts, and extensively used for various 
kinds of turnery-work, especially in making the 
handles of bell-pulls, umbrellas, &c. ; for the shell 
(or putamen) is of great thickness, excessively hard, 
beautifully mottled with dark and light brown, and 
capable of taking a high polish. Healthy young 
plants of this Palm are in the Royal Gardens at 
Kew, although it is rarely met with in private 
collections. The genus belongs to the Cocoa-nut 
group, and the plant was first called by Gsertner 
Cocos lapidea, afterwards! by Targioni Tozzetti, 
Lithocarpus cociformis, having reference in both 
cases to the very hard, almost stony nature of the 
fruit. The stem is said to attain a height of from 
twenty to thirty feet, and the leaves or fronds rise 
to fifteen or twenty feet above that. — Hook. Jour. 
Bot., 121. 
Manna. Of the Manna so called, of Scripture, 
we know nothing further than what we learn from 
the Sacred Book. The Manna known in medicine 
is a sweet concrete exudation, procured from a tree 
called by Linnaeus Fraxinus Ornus, or the Flower- 
ing Ash (perhaps the Fraxinus rotundifolia of 
Lamarck), and a native of the south of Europe and 
Asia Minor; but the Manna seems chiefly to be 
collected in Calabria and Sicily. In the districts of 
Capace,Cinesi, and Fabarotto, where the best Manna 
is obtained, the tree does not form woods, as is 
commonly supposed, but is cultivated in separate 
plantations. These plantations generally present 
