room, and a current of air of superlative purity, 
and of any bearable temperature desired, may be 
enjoyed ad libitum throughout the apartment. 
No stretch of the imagination of an ordinary 
mind is required to see that the ajriferous ar¬ 
rangement described, is capable of supplying iu 
the fervid season an ineffable luxury. 
FROM SMAU CAUSES GREAT EFFECTS. 
This simple, unpretentious mode of tempering 
and purifying air and ventilnting dwellings will 
obviate the necessity of pleasure-seekers subject¬ 
ing themselves to all the dangers, annoyances, 
and inconveniences unavoidable in traveling, as 
well as during a sojourn at so-called pleasure 
resorts. By availing themselves of the peerless 
luxuries now derivable from a well-arranged sys¬ 
tem of sub-earth ventilation, the '* home" which 
there should lie “ no place like," may be made 
the long-sought, but never fouud spot where 
mry bo perpetually enjoyed pure air in full sup¬ 
ply, a temperature that one may regulate just 
to his individual taste, entire freedom from 
insects, and withal, and best of ail, where our 
society may include none but those we love. 
Harvard, Ill, 
this respect, there being dozens in them, with 
not one medium tuber. Brownell’s Beauty will 
never do so. 
I would bo glad if some of the Rural folks 
who have grown Mahopac this season, would 
toll us the result bb I am interested in it, and 
think of trying it another year. 
and shaded localities, of lato years, than any 
other one plant that I could name, resulting in 
its being found in unsuspected localities. It is 
gathered and made an article of profitable traffic, 
being sent to almost all sections of our country, 
and even to other lands. 
Many persons are so anxious to obtain it that 
it is gathered too early in the season. When 
this is the case, it is not sufficiently matured lo 
retain its color, and vet y soou turns to a light- 
brown and fadcM quite rapidly. September is 
as early as it ought to be gathered ; but it will 
retain its color best if not gathered till October 
or November, if grown in some sheltered locality 
where the frosts have not caused the fruit to 
fall. This fern may be successfully transplanted 
in spring, transferring tho roots and adhering 
earth to some soil and exposure similar to those 
in which it has rested during tho winter. 
and floriferous condition, its ephemeral blossoms 
glistering like so many newly-coined golden 
guineas. Iu this country, however, we have no 
need of artificially heated ponds, for our sum¬ 
mers are tropical enough to do this welcomed 
stranger justice. 
Botanic Gardens, Cambridge, Mass. 
ERIANTHUS RAVENNAE 
DIMORPHISM IN EUCALYPTUS GLOBULUS. 
About two and a half years ago I planted a 
little Eucalyptus tree; it grew about ten feet 
the first year ; the next year it (brow out branch¬ 
es with leaves very different, long and narrow ; 
it is now nineteen reel high, and tho whole 
upper part of it is of the narrow leaves. We 
send you a specimen, as we consider it a curiosi¬ 
ty.—L. A., Galveston, Texas. 
Remarks.— Tho loaves are so unlike, that it is 
difficult to believe they exist upon the samo 
plant. 
Those on one branch (which wo in the North 
commonly see) are sessile, slightly cordate. They 
are acute, gradually growing wider to the base, 
averaging two inches in width by four in length. 
Those on tho oilier are nine inches in length 
and not over an inch wide in Dio widest part. 
They curve like a soytho and aro round at tho 
point. They have distinct petioles one inch in 
length. The substance of the leaf is more leath¬ 
ery and wrinkled in a dry state. 
In a young state—say under twenty feet—tho 
leaves are as those first described. But as it be- 
In our issue of Sept. 22d, reference was made 
to Erianthus Ravenna) as ono of the numerous 
ornamental grasses that adorned the Experimen- 
THE WATER CHESTNUT (Trapa natans.) 
BY WILLIAM FALCONER, 
This pretty littlo aquatic, a native of Southern 
Europe and belonging to t-ho Evening Primrose 
family, is perfectly hardy and luxurious in our 
i North American ponds, where in limited quanti¬ 
ties it is quite an ornament. The plants have 
long-jointed root-stocks or stems with tufts of 
comparatively stout, hair-like roots at tho joints, 
and aro surmounted by a radiating cluster of 
triangular-toothed leaves, with swollen float-like 
stalks that servo to buoy them up. Those leaf* 
rosettes, of olive-green color, appear above 
w’ater, towards the end of May nr early in June, 
and constitute the beauty of tho plants. The 
flowers aro white some one-half to three-fourths 
of an inch across, freely produced from the first 
week in July till about tho 10th of August, and 
on tho water look as if some cherry-blossom 
petals had been blown amongst tho matted 
rosettes. 
Tho fruits or “ Chestnuts ’’ are very curious, 
some one-half to two inches in diameter, and 
have four conspicuous strong and pointed horns. 
Those fruits “have been compared to tho 
spiked iron instruments called caltrojs, em¬ 
ployed in ancient warfare for strewing on the 
ground to impede tho progress of cavalry; and. 
from the plant growing in tho water, it is com¬ 
monly called the Water Caltrops. Tho seeds 
called Jesuits’ nuts at Vonice, and Chataicjne 
d'Kaa by the French, are ground into Hour and 
made into bread in some parts of Southern 
Europe.” 
In the gardens here is a pond two to four feet 
deep when full, fed by surface water and two 
drains, and with sloping earth-banks and a 
brick-clay bottom. From December till April 
this pond is pretty full, but as the summer ad¬ 
vances the water-supply lessens, so much so, 
PETS OF OUR VEGETABLE GARDEN 
BY AN EPICURE, 
A desire to correct, an error in my first article 
on vegetables, and unexpected success with 
other vegetables, prompt mo to defer my article 
on 11 Pots of our flower garden,” and send 
auother paper on vegetables. In my first, I 
stated that tho cocoanut squash was only fit 
for an ornament. I did that luscious little 
squash a great injustice when I said that. I 
wrote what I had hoard another person declare, 
not having tested it myself. Hu Lad it on a 
soil entirely different from mine, which may 
account for its inferiority with him. It is the 
finest flavored and handsomest squash I ever 
saw upon a dish ; dry, sweet, prolific and un¬ 
surpassed. It. is small, but the great number 
on tho viue compensates for its want of size. 
I will state—(lest some mistake the squash I 
refer to for the old squash popularly denomin¬ 
ated “ cocoanut”)—that it ia a new squash 
offered last spring by but one or two seeds¬ 
men out of fifty of the leading houses in 
America. 
As some misapprehension has arisen con¬ 
cerning the Boasin lettuce of which I spoke, 
Boston Curled having been supposed to be the 
sort meant, I will say that tho Bossin is a new 
I'rench lettuce of tho Cos family, heads well 
CATALOGUES &c, RECEIVED 
D. S. Marvin, Watertown, N. Y. Price list of 
OrapeVines. Mr. Marvin says:—“Theseason 
has been propitious and my vines are strong.” 
William Parry, Pomona Nursery, Cinnamin- 
son, New Jersey. “ Forty Years among Hniall 
Fruits Telling What and IIow to Plant.” A 
practical and instructive pamphlet. Free to ap¬ 
plicants. Also, Fall Prices for Fruits grown for 
market and Plants for sale. 
|.rI>on cultural 
ABOUT TREE PLANTING AROUND SCHOOL 
HOUSES, 
tal Grounds. It is one of tho most desirable 
grasses of the kind in cultivation, withstanding 
uninjured tho greatest severity or our winters 
without protection. It grows in large clumps 
from which the stems shoot up to a bight of 
ten or twelve feet crowned with silvery plumes, 
twenty inches in length. Wo have sufficiently 
described the plant, however, in back numbers 
and only wished to give our readers an idea 
of its bloom represented by the accompanying 
cut. 
BY MRS. A. E. STORY 
Who is there that would build a house as a 
dwelling for himself and family, and suffer it to 
stand year after year, with not so much as a 
shrub or tree, to stretch forth its friendly arms 
between a scorching suu and its inmates ? Tho 
unpOOtio and thoroughly practical man dots his 
door-yard with fruit, trees and takes his noon-day 
uap Under their boughs, with the air of a man 
proud to enjoy the comforts which his own 
hands have provided for him. 
There is something either inherent in our 
natures, or born of the influences that surround 
us, which impels ns every spring to the planting 
of trees. There is something peculiarly hope-in¬ 
spiring In tlie work of setting ft tree where it may 
send its roots downward and its branches up¬ 
ward until what was but an unsightly blank on 
the earth's surface, becomes an Eden of rest and 
beauty, so firmly fixed that the roughest winds of 
heaven may not prevail against it. The ordinary 
work of our bauds soon perishos, but here is 
something that will livo after us : 
Plant trees, you who would leave the earth 
more beautiful for your labors ou it. Plant 
them about your homes and along your road¬ 
sides and this brings us to our object in writing 
this article-plant them about your Bchool- 
houses. The sight of forty unprotected heads 
playing “ Pompom pull away " or “ Anty over” 
or “Sister Phoebe” under a broiling August 
sun, is not a refreshing spectacle ; but it is ono 
which may he daily witnessed, between the 
hours of twelve and one, all over tho land. 
For children who havo had throe hours in tho 
school-room, with tho vision before them of 
three more to come, will not stay indoors, oven 
though the only shade for half a mile around is 
to be fouud there, 
A certain amount of sunshine is good for us 
all, but we prefer to take ours when working or 
walking, and not when we have a half-hour for 
rest or recreation. It is no wouder that so 
many of tho children attending the summer 
schools—and in tho country the schools are far 
too generally kept open through tho summer— 
grow pale and spiritless and lacking iu vitality. 
They are simply wilted from too much exposure 
to the sun. It pours in a broad sheet through 
tho school-room windows; it pelts in through 
the open door, while the roof and walls are 
blistering with the heat of it, and the sand out¬ 
side is too hot for anything less callous than the 
children’s feet. With this constant down-pour 
and influx of heat, the school-house becomes 
FERNS 
BY W. H. WRITE 
but we hold them in check by reducing the pods 
before seeds are formed. This we do with a 
wooden mko drawing, as it were, a swath all 
round tho pad to the outside when wo fork it on 
to the bank from which we cart or wheel it 
away. This summer wo thinned five cart-loads 
of plants out of ©Ur little pond. 
In the London Garden of August 25, page 193, 
is said tho “ Water Chestnut thrives in waters in 
the south of England.” Now, Prof. C. S. Sar- 
oent tells me that Sir Joseph D. Hooker of 
Kew, (who was hero two months ago) in¬ 
forms him that all attempts to grow this plant 
out of doors in England have failed and, speak¬ 
ing from my own observations, I certainly never 
saw it there. 
UMNQCHARIS HUMBOIOTII. 
This ia a handsome flowering aquatic, a her¬ 
baceous perennial, and a native of Brazil. A 
few plants wintered in a greenhouse tank and 
turned into ponds in the summer lime, thrive 
amazingly, Spreading widely by their proliferous 
branching and rooting stems, and blooming 
profusely from June till .September or later. 
The leaves are broadly heart-shaped, oblong, 
smooth, of a lively pale-green hue, and float on 
the surface of the water; and tho flowers are 
some two to three itichcB across and of a sul¬ 
phur-yellow color. As greenhouse plants we 
generally pot them in turfy loam and set them 
shallowly in the tanks, by placing tho pots in 
which they are growing on other inverted pots, 
but in the summer time, in our ponds we 
merely set them adrift and let them find a 
resling foot-hold where best, they may. 
My first acquaintance with this little gem, as 
an out-door aquatic, was at Mr. Beaufoy’s 
gardens at Lambeth, iu London. There, in a 
tank in the middle of tho garden, which was fed 
by a continuous streamlet of warm water—the 
condensed steam from tho neighboring brewery 
—this Limuocliaris was in the most nourishing 
Our woods, low lands, shaded valleys, and 
even our hillsides and pastures, furnish us with 
plauts iu great variety, and interesting to study. 
We can scarcely go through any limited tract of 
wood or field without finding great variety of 
torm, and striking beauty of vegetation on every 
bund. How we should prize those plants, many 
of them, were they imported with some foreign 
name attached to them ! In many of our ex¬ 
tensive green-houses may be found collections 
of foreign ferns, few of which excel in beauty, 
gracefulness and interest, our native wild ferns 
which may be collected from well-known locali¬ 
ties where their beauty ia often shed unseen. 
Autumn leaves are a passiou of many, and our 
various ferns furnish the collector with some of 
Hie finest specimens of beauty, rich in varied 
hues and colors of the changing season. The 
Polypodium, Wood ward ia, Asplenium, Aspldium, 
Cystopterie, etc., furnish us some of the richest 
and most splendid autumn tints and colors 
iu their native localities ; and then tho pleas¬ 
ure and excitement in seeking them out cause 
them to be much sought for by many col¬ 
lectors. But of all the ferns which our wood¬ 
lands furnish, none possesses greater attractions, 
or is more eagerly sought for by every lover of 
gracefulness and beauty, than the trailing 
fern—Lygodium palmaturn. It is described in 
Grays Botany, thus: “Very smooth, stalk 
slender, flexile and twining ; one to three feet 
long, from slender running root stocks ; the 
short, alternate branches, or petioles deeply 
two-forked, each fork bearing a rounded heart- 
shaped palmately four to seven lobed sterile 
frondlet; fertile frondlets above, contracted and 
several times forked, forming a terminal pani¬ 
cle.” 
This variety Is rare, usually growing in shaded, 
m °ist places. The great demand for this grace¬ 
ful fern has caused more searching of woodlands 
