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ON THE CULTIVATION OF LOTUS JACOBJ2US 
ON THE CULTURE OF THE KAKI TREE. 
The Kaki is the Embry opt er is Kaki of our Botanical Catalogues, the Diospyros Chinensis 
of Blume, the Diospyros Kaki of Willdenow, and the Kaki or Konis of Ksempfer. It is 
a native of Japan, China, and Cochin-China, and is extensively cultivated both in those 
countries and in many parts of the continent of India. 
It forms an evergreen shrub growing 12 to 20 feet in height. Branches , tomentose. 
Leaves bifarious, ovate- elliptic, acuminate, cordate at the base, downy on both surfaces. 
Male peduncles usually three-flowered. Male flowers, calyx and corolla four-parted. 
Stamens sixteen to twenty-four. Hermaphrodite flowers ; Calyx and corolla four-parted. 
Stamens eight. Style four-cleft. Stigmas bifid. Fruit globose, eight-celled, about the 
size of an orange, yellow when ripe, and replete with a rich, yellow, fleshy, tolerably 
pleasant pulp ; in flavour, however, it is scarcely equal to a good apple, and it is said to be 
prejudicial if eaten to excess. In a dry state these fruit are introduced to this country 
under the name of Japanese Dates, and the sweetmeat known in France by the name of 
Figues caques is made of this fruit. They are preserved exactly in the same manner as 
figs, by sprinkling meal and sugar over them after they have been partially dried in 
the sun. 
The plant forms a neat greenhouse plant and was introduced in 1789. It belongs to 
the Natural Order Ebenacece , or Ebony trees ; its timber like that of the rest of the species 
is exceedingly hard and nearly black. Nothing more than the ordinary treatment of 
greenhouse plants is requisite, and increase is effected by layers and suckers. 
ON THE CULTIVATION OF LOTUS JACOB^EUS as a “ SPECIMEN ” PLANT. 
By G. T. 
In by-gone times, when the culture of ornamental exotics in private establishments almost 
universally resembled the objects, and assumed the appearance of public collections brought 
together in botanic gardens for the sake of science, for the numerical extent of genera and 
species they might contain ; there is nothing very surprising in the circumstance of a plant 
so fragile, and at first sight so apparently insignificant in its external aspect as the dark- 
flowering old Bird's-Joot Trefoil , being permitted to descend into comparative oblivion, 
until such time as some ardent admirer of “ old plants ” perceived the inherent attractions 
that it possessed, and accordingly set about cultivating his adopted plant, until at length a 
graceful “ Specimen ” was produced as the gratifying reward of all his pains. Thus we 
have presented forcibly to our more immediate notice, the now-a-days not unusual spectacle 
of some centenarian — some lowly and yet lovely plant that has been our unappreciated, 
if not despised guest for upwards of a hundred years — its delicacy and unassuming beauty 
perhaps unheeded, lightly esteemed if not altogether disregarded, or compelled in brief to 
“ hide its diminished head ” amid the gaudier hues displayed in the boundless realms of Flora. 
Few, or rather none, we presume there are, who interested in the cultivation of plants, 
are wholly unacquainted with the neglected subject of our notice. As far as our own 
experience or recollection extends, its soft velvety-looking blossoms have ever commanded 
a certain amount of admiration — especially from the fair portion of amateurs, who although 
unacquainted with the more abstrusely scientific departments of the art, nevertheless 
delight and excel in the culture of subjects of ornament — whereas, the intrinsic merits of 
this plant, and its capabilities of becoming a “ specimen ” when well managed, have 
apparently remained disregarded until now. Here it may be appropriately mentioned 
that until we saw this old Leguminous plant in a beautiful state in the splendid gardens 
of the Earl de Grey at Wrest Park, Bedfordshire ; we, too, were unconscious of how 
