112 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
February 7,1896. 
entitled to rank as distinct. A good typical flower would be 
inches to 4 inches across. The sepals and petals are yellow, 
streaked and blotched with brown and purple, the latter being in 
many forms deeply serrated at the margin. The lip is white or 
yellow with blotches and spots of brown. This is sometimes also 
deeply fringed. 
Being a native of New Grenada and found at a great elevation, 
O. luteo-purpureum must be grown in the cool house, and the treat¬ 
ment advised recently for O. crispum will suit it admirably. This 
Orchid is supposed to be one of the parents of many fine natural 
hybrids, as for instance 0. lyroglossum, 0. mulus, and the 
beautiful 0. Wilckeauum. 
Oncidium spiiacelatum. 
Although this species cannot compare with such as 0. Marshall- 
ianum and others of that section for size or brilliance of colouring, 
its free-blooming qualities, combined with the fact of its being 
so easily grown, will recommend it to many. The spikes are 
frequently 6 feet in length, and the small side branches of these 
are well adapted for cutting for various purposes, and especially 
for buttonholes and sprays. The flowers are yellow, the sepals 
and petals transversely barred with chocolate brown. The spikes 
are a long time in opening, as they usually grow to the full 
length before branching. Should they be wanted earlier than 
they are likely to grow naturally, they may be pinched when 
about 30 inches high to hasten their opening. This of course 
reduces the number of flowers produced, but it prolongs the 
flowering season by several weeks if some are left to open 
naturally. 
O. sphacelatum is one of the freest rooting Orchids in existence, 
and for this reason seldom gets out of health. The plants may 
be potted in three parts of sphagnum moss to one of charcoal ; 
the best time for this operation being directly after flowering. 
While growing it requires the heat of the Cattleya house with a 
copious supply of moisture both at the roots and in the atmosphere ; 
but after the pseudo-bulbs are fully matured it should be rested 
by withholding water but keeping the plants in the same house. 
As soon as the spikes can be seen in tbe axils of the leaves the 
plants must be again watered, or shrivelling of the pseudo-bulbs 
will be the result. O. sphacelatum is a native of Mexico and 
other parts of Central America. 
Dendrobium aggregatum. 
This pretty little species is not so much grown as formerly, in 
fact it is not often met with. The pseudo-bulbs are clustered about 
2 inches high, angular, and becoming furrowed with age ; each 
bears a single leaf. The short, arching, many-flowered racemes 
are produced from the side of the pseudo-bulbs near the top 
during the present month. The flowers are of two shades of 
yellow, the lip being darker than the sepals and petals ; they 
last about a fortnight in good condition. 
A peculiarity of this species is the short time the pseudo-bulbs 
are growing, usually not more than five or six weeks. It succeeds 
well as a block plant if given a little sphagnum about the roots 
when established, or it may be grown in small shallow pans in 
peat and moss suspended near the roof. In either case it must 
not suffer for want of water while growing, and must have plenty 
of heat and moisture during this period. In winter it does best 
in the Cattleya house, and should not be dried sufficiently to 
cause shrivelling of the pseudo-bulbs. 
The best plants of this Orchid I have seen were grown on 
bare blocks of teak wood with one end in a specially made pot, 
containing 2 or 3 inches of water. These were kept filled during 
the summer and empty in winter. This very desirable little species 
is a native of Northern India, and first flowered in this country 
in 1834.—H. R. R. 
THE MULBERRY. 
The Mulberry is generally considered a biblical tree, but the 
original term laca seems to have puzzled the translators, and 
scholars agree that it is hard to say what tree is meant by the word 
rendered Mulberry tree. Parkhurst gives it as his opinion that 
haca means a kind of large shrub, from which is distilled an 
odoriferous gum ; and, singularly, the Arabs have a shrub cor¬ 
responding to the description which they call haca. Hasselquist 
states that the Mulberry scarcely ever grows in Judaea, very little 
in Galilee, though abounding in Syria and in the mountains of 
Lebanon. 
Ovid’s “ Metamorphoses ” upsets our evolutionary notions as 
regards the origin of species. In it appears the story of Pyramus 
and Thisbe, and reads something like this :—Pyramus, who lived 
in Babylon, became enamoured of Thisbe, a very beautiful virgin 
of that city. The flame was mutual, but their parents forbade their 
marriage, so that the lovers interchanged their sentiments through 
an aperture in a wall which separated their houses. They agreed 
to meet at the tomb of Ninus, which was overshadowed by a 
white Mulberry tree, and without the walls of Babylon. Thisbe 
was first there, but the unlooked-for arrival of a lioness frightened 
her away, and as she fled she dropped her veil, which the lioness 
found and left covered with blood, having immediately before 
killed an ox. Meanwhile Pyramus appears on the scene, and 
having found Thisbe’s blood-besmeared robe, concluded “ she was no 
more,” he took his own life. Thisbe, returning soon afterwards 
and finding the body of her lover, she fell upon the sword with 
which Pyramus had destroyed himself. The Mulberry tree was 
stained with the blood of the swains, and ever afterwards bore 
fruit of that colour. Shakespeare caricatures this story in 
“ Midsummer Night’s Dream.” 
The white Mulberry (Morus alba) is the most interesting 
on account of the leaves being used for food by silkworms. It 
is a native of China, and the Chinese claim the art of rearing 
silkworms and manufacturing silk stuffs from a remote period. 
This art was introduced from China into India and Persia, and 
though long practised, there silk was not known to the Greeks 
at the time of Alexander, or to the Romans until the end of the 
republic, and for many ages bore an enormous price at Rome. 
At the middle of the sixth century, during the reign of Justinian, 
two monks arrived at Constantinople from India, bringing with 
them the white Mulberry and the eggs of the silkworm. From 
Constantinople the white Mulberry was introduced into Greece, 
and in or about the year 1130 it was introduced into Sicily and 
Italy. About forty years later the white Mulberry was brought 
into France. Some records state that the white Mulberry was 
not brought into Italy till 1440, nor into France till 1480, and 
it is stated to have been little known in that country till 1564. 
The first Mulberry tree that was planted in France was living 
in 1802. 
The date of the introduction of the white Mulberry into England 
is given at 1596, or forty-eight years later than that of the black 
Mulberry (Morus nigra). If so, there is no wonder that silkworm 
farming never flourished in this country, for the leaves of the white 
are a much better food for the “ worms,” and a superior quality of 
silk is produced than when the black Mulberry is the food-plant. 
Early in the seventeenth century James I. made an attempt at 
Mulberry tree and silk culture, and got a French nurseryman, 
Sidur de la Forest, to travel the eastern and midland counties of 
England, and in that way disposed of 100,000 Mulberry trees in 
1609. Mulberry gardens were common in the neighbourhood of 
London at the latter part of the sixteenth and beginning of the 
seventeenth centuries, when it is recorded that “ either from the 
climate, or the prejudices of the people, the growth of silk never 
prospered.” 
The black Mulberry (Morus nigra) is said to be a native of 
Persia, and has been cultivated in Europe from a very remote 
period. The Romans preferred its produce to every foreign fruit. 
The black Mulberry, according to Loudon, was introduced from 
Italy into England in 1548, and the first trees are stated to have 
been planted in the gardens at Syon House. Shakespeare’s 
Mulberry tree is supposed to have been planted in 1609 
in his garden at New Place, Stratford-on-Avon. It was cut 
down in 1750. Other notable Mulberry trees are Milton’s in the 
gardens of Christ’s Church College, Cambridge ; two in the gardens 
of Pembroke College, Oxford, which, it is supposed, were planted 
at the foundation of the College in 1624. Stanmore Priory gardens 
were also famed for an old Mulberry tree. But the most antique 
English Mulberry tree was, and may be now, that in the old abbey 
gardens at Canterbury, the original stem being prostrate, but there 
springs from it several trunks of great size and age. 
Many other old Mulberry trees in and around London are, like 
Thisbe, “ no more,” for the builder spares nothing old, and it is 
similar in and about most other cities and towns. Even in the 
country few old Mulberry trees are left to link the past with the 
present, which indicates the small esteem in which this very hand¬ 
some foliage tree was held for ornamental and useful purposes. 
Nevertheless, there are several Mulberry trees in the southern 
parts of the country that have attained large proportions and bear 
enormous crops of fruit, which is greedily devoured by blackbirds, 
these preferring Mulberries, like the Romans, to any foreign fruit 
of its season. 
Nearly all the Mulberry trees I have seen of any age and size 
worth mention were of the black variety, or rather species. This 
may or may not indicate that the white Mulberry requires a 
warmer climate. It certainly suggests its being less esteemed than 
the black as a fruit-bearing tree, therefore it was but little planted. 
It also produces fruit less freely than the black Mulberry, and on 
that account it would be in less request. Yet the white Mulberry 
forms a handsome standard, being quite hardy in warm situations 
