Jane 2, 1887. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
445 
arc of sombre aspect; for example, in the vases which encircle the 
middle space there have been set specimens of Cupressus Lawsoniana, 
when it would have been easy to have had brighter-looking shrubs. The 
antique statue of the First George has given place to one of Skakspeare, 
which looks down upon the central fountain and the radiating flower 
beds, and at each of the corners are busts of notorieties. If Ferns and 
creepers were more used than at present to fill up nooks and corners 
about these public gardens a considerable improvement would be made ; 
it is not difficult to find species that will succeed in London. Golden 
Square, off Regent Street, claims a word, though it is small and as yet 
private. It is another relic of the open fields. This possesses the 
advantage of having its ground rather elevated, hence it drains better. 
It has some old Planes and rugged Hawthorns, and numerous Lilacs 
scattered over its grassy space, but a scant display of flowers of the 
cockney type.—J. It. S. C. 
CHRYSANTHEMUM AUDITS. 
Mr. Davis naturally, but at the same time erroneously, concludes 
from the absence of Duchess of Albany from my last Chrysanthemum 
analysis that it was scarcely, if at all shown, at “ the National ” in 1886. 
The fact is, as is well known, there are unfortunately two Japanese 
Chrysanthemums of this name. In the hurry of taking down the names 
of the flowers in the different stands I omitted to place a distinguishing 
mark against the best of these two varieties, so that when I came to 
tabulate the results it was of course impossible to accord to it its proper 
position in the list. I, however, intended to add a note below the table 
stating that the two Duchesses taken together were shown in fourteen 
stands at last year’s exhibition. Now, as Duchess of Albany is placed 
2-1 in “ B. D. K.’s ” list, and credited with fourteen first prizes, this 
shows how closely the two lists would have been in accord on this 
point had I been able to give Jackson’s variety its proper value. 
As regards Belle Paule. After the discussion in your pages last year 
respecting the great unreliability of this variety, it seems to me scarcely 
fair to select this capricious beauty as the test flower of any Chrysan¬ 
themum audit. Moreover, as both Mr. Davis and Mr. Molyneux have 
pointed out, last season was a particularly unfavourable one for Belle 
Paule, so that we might reasonably expect it to stand lower in my 
analysis than after a year which suited it better. 
I was away from home ac the time Mr. Davis’s remarks appeared, or 
should have replied to them earlier.—E. M., Berkha muted. 
INTERESTING ASCLEPIADS. 
While governing his Presidency of Madras Sir Mountstuart Grant 
Duff has found time, says the Daily Telegraph, to correspond with 
the authorities of Kew Gardens and other centres of botanical work 
and research. The abundant detail and scientific importance of his 
letters filled those who received them with admiration, and they have 
without doubt done much to extend floral and arboreal science. In one 
of the last of the communications, addressed to Mr. Thiselton Dyer, Sir 
Mountstuart furnished an instance of those still unexplored marvels of 
the vegetable world just spoken of. He enclosed some leaves of a plant 
called Gymncma sylvestre, an Asclepiad. The Governor had found out 
that by slowly chewing two or three of its leaves the power of dis¬ 
tinguishing the taste of sugar and certain other flavours becomes 
absolutely abolished. In drinking coffee after eating Gymnema leaves 
it was impossible to say whether sugar had been put in or not. The 
aroma of a cigar was in like manner entirely negatived, and Sir Mount¬ 
stuart justly thought, after a series of such experimental proofs of its 
power over his own tongue or palate and those of others, that the plant 
might serve some important medical use. Those who received a sample 
of it here found its curious property well retained ; and Kew has since 
written to the Director of Public Plantations at Ootacamund asking for 
seeds to raise material for future experiment. 
Yet, in truth, the palatal action of Gymnema sylvestre is merely an 
example of a thousand unknown, or only half-known, marvels with 
which the vegetable world teems. Man has only partly explored that 
realm of magic opened to his feet in every green forest and field, where 
from one plant comes the pleasant aroma of theine or caffeine, from 
another an alkaloid, exactly similar in aspect, which, however, crisps the 
nerves with tetanus, while from a third is distilled the potent but 
dangerous morphia, benignantly soothing weary sufferers into repose, 
yet a very serpent of death if abused. This same family of the 
Asclepiads is a perfect treasure-store of natural miracles. The order 
consists, for the most part, of shrubs or herbs, usually yielding a milky 
juice and often of twining habits. It chiefly haunts tropical regions, 
but examples are found in northern climates, and are best represented 
in this country by the Swallow-wort, Not fewer, however, than 
159 genera and 958 species have been enumerated of the immense family 
which derives its name from rEsculapius, the God of Physic, because of 
the various and notable medicinal properties of its members. The 
beautiful and fragrant Stephanotis and the lovely Hoya, with its creamy 
blossoms gemmed by glittering drops of honeydew, may give to lovers 
of flowers at home delightful examples of Asclepiads, albeit the singular 
properties of such plants are little suspected. 
Sir Mountstuart’s Gymnema, the leaves of which can thus suddenly 
annul the sense of taste, is but one of the minor sorcerers in this band 
of enchanters. There is the Calotropis, which yields the medicinal bark 
known as mudar, curing skin diseases better than sulphur, and almost 
as good as ipecacuanha for dysentery. Mudarine, an extract from this 
plant, has the odd faculty of turning to a jelly when heated, and 
becoming fluid on cooling. Then there is Cynanchum, the leaves of 
which are employed to adulterate Senna and also to mix with genuine 
Scammony. Hemidesmus is, again, an efficient substitute for Sarsa¬ 
parilla, and goes indeed in India by the name of “ country sarsa.” Not 
to be outdone by her woodland sisters, who thus simulate and supplant 
certain of the most respectable medicaments, Marsdenia, another of the 
family, produces an admirable dark blue dye as rich as indigo, while 
another of the same name furnishes a fibre so strong that the ltaj-Mahal 
hillmen make from it bowstrings as tough as cat-gut. An American 
variety affords from one and the same root india-rubber, soft downy 
stuffing for pillows, and excellent material for rope and paper. A 
Malayan Asclepiad climbs very high on Betel Palms, and on its upper 
stalk produces the most grotesque pitchers, wherein it stores water for 
its own supply in dry seasons. The family eccentricities are in fact 
endless. The Hoya, already spoken of, looks as if moulded out of white 
wax, and diffuses a perfume like a breath from Paradise ; but the 
Stapelias, although its very close relatives, have a smell so vile that they 
are justly called “ carrion plants,” and produce small ugly flowers, 
coloured like a livid wound. A species called Tuberosa grows in America,, 
and is there familiarly known as the “ Butterfly Weed ” and also the 
“ Pleurisy Root,” because of its remarkable demulcent gifts, for these odd 
vegetables kill and cure by turn, and the young shoots of a variety 
found in Arabia are eaten as a kind of Asparagus by every camel driver 
and pilgrim who can get them. 
In Madeira there is another Asclepiad going by the name of “ Silk 
Plant,” which in many half-examined ways is quite as extraordinary a 
plant as any of them ; and, though the name is fanciful, several of this 
family in different regions are popularly known as “ Wild Cotton,” be¬ 
cause of the tuft of hair adherent to their seeds. Almost all exude the 
characteristic milky juice, one drop of which will often so sting the 
tongue that the herb, whose beautiful and perfumed blossom had 
tempted the tropical sportsman to nibble one of its pale leaves, will be 
looked upon afterwards by him as something rather worse than a Upas, 
tree. Yet the same vegetable milk, which in the Gymnema of the ex- 
Governor of Madras paralyses the nerves of taste, and in Cynanchum 
absolutely strangles the rash eater with throat spasms, is, in the form 
of another species—native of Ceylon—almost as good as a cow. Thes 
Cingalese woman or child who wants a draught of milk cuts through, 
the stem of this not infrequent shrub, which at once supplies a bland 
semi-sweet liquid, nutritious to a remarkable extent, and agreeable as 
the produce of any dairy. Considering, moreover, that in Bengal and 
Assam alone there exist more than eighty varieties of Asclepiads, it 
may be gathered from our hurried glance at some among the vegetable 
vagaries of this family what odd and precious secrets yet remain to be 
discovered. 
In fact, the tree and plant world is not yet half explored as regards 
what it might contribute to the service and comfort of mankind. Look 
at the part played in the world by tobacco, in which the United States 
last year spent no less than 256 million dollars 1 Consider the value of 
opium, morphia, quinine, tea, coffee, and cocoa. Remark the terrible 
force of strychnine, codeine, atropine, and those other subtle alkaloids 
which are at once, according to use, ferocious poisons or benignest drugs. 
These, and the like of what we know and use among extracts and 
essences, form but a small part of what Nature holds in her half-closed 
hand, ready to bestow upon patient investigators. Whoever has wan¬ 
dered in eastern jungles cannot but preserve recollection of scores of 
plants apparently well deserving notice. There is in Bengal, foi- 
example, a bush smelling like a musk rat, and another with an odour of 
goats, both of which are pretty sure to possess curious medical proper¬ 
ties ; there are the Dhavali, the juice of which is readymade glue ; and 
the Kadamba, with its tender and sweet flower clusters, also called the 
“ Night Tree,” because they have no scent by day, but are particularly 
fragrant in the darkness. There is, too, the excellent resin of the Sal 
Tree, as yet unknown to commerce, being kept by Hindoos to burn 
before their gods, and there exists in Bengal a tree called Sindur, the- 
fruit of which bears Nature-made madder, in the form of red dust ; 
while another, called Agar in Assam, supplies good paper from its bark 
without any paper-mill, as the Sugar Reed of the Brahmaputra banks, 
furnishes a saccharine matter just like new honey ; together with a host 
of other half-known but remarkable denizens of jungle and garden. 
We speak, of course, of chemical and medical knowledge rather than 
mere botanical classification. The latter has been, po doubt, more ox- 
less perfectly accomplished nowadays, although every traveller from 
the heart of Africa still brings back to the herbaria of science new 
specimens. But it is from the secret properties of this wonderful vege¬ 
table realm that the advancing art of healing Will by-and-by obtain its 
chief sedative and therapeutic treasxxres. 
SILICA—ARTIFICIAL MANURES. 
Mr. Gilaiour again honours me by a friendly critique, but I beg to 
take exception to his crediting me with concluding that the current crop 
removes the 1$ per cent, of soluble silica as given by Dr. Voelcker in an 
analysis of a clay soil. What I stated (page 339) was that the soluble 
silica “ certainly constitutes a part of that found in the current crop,” 
which is very different from the whole. That, however, is not material 
to the issue—viz., that “ removing the soluble silica from the soil and 
not replacing it ultimately exhausts the soii of its soluble silica.” To 
that I adhere, and unless' it be restored the soil must inevitably become 
exhausted on the “crop after crop” system of artificials. In the 
