1874.] 
AMERICAN AGRIC LJ LT UR I ST. 
183 
An Enormous Arad — Amorphophallus. 
The recent taste for “ subtropical” garden¬ 
ing, in which regard is had to grace of form in 
plants or striking character of foliage, rather 
than beauty of flowers, has led to the introduc¬ 
tion of numerous curious subjects, among 
which is Amorphophallus Bivieri. As it has 
not yet received any English name we can not 
offer any other as an alternative. Two years 
ago, Messrs. B. K. Bliss & Sons gave us a tuber 
about the size of one’s fist as a great novelty 
just received from France. This tuber threw 
up a single leaf-stalk about two 
feet high, which at the top was 
surmounted by a large umbrel¬ 
la-like leaf cut into three princi¬ 
pal divisions, which are them¬ 
selves curiously and irregularly 
subdivided. An idea of the 
form of the leaf can be obtained 
from the engraving, though a 
portion of it is concealed by the 
flower. The tuber produces but one leaf each sea¬ 
son, but this is a monster. Mr. Bliss informed us 
that he saw them in France, from strong tubers, 
four or five feet high, with the blade four feet 
across. Growing by itself upon the lawn, its 
unusual and somewhat grotesque appearance is 
sure to attract attention. The leaf stalk is of a 
greenish black color, with numerous lighter 
spots, while the leaf itself is of a dark green. 
Our tuber when taken up in the fall had in¬ 
creased consideraoly in size and thrown off a 
great number of offsets, by means of which it 
may be rapidly propagated. This spring Messrs. 
Olm Brothers, florists, of Newark, N. J., had a 
large tuber flower u one of their greenhouses; 
they sent it to us, and we have had an engrav¬ 
ing made from it. The huge flower was, in¬ 
cluding stem, about three feet high; the flower 
stem arises from the tuber unaccomp ed by 
leaves, and, as well as the flowering portion, is 
of a peculiarly lurid greenish purple color and 
spotted; the spathe or expanded portion is 
irregular in outline and somewhat ruffled on 
the margin; the interior surface has a some¬ 
what metallic luster. The projecting central 
portion, the spadix, is flattened sidewise and 
roughened with small tubercles. It is at the 
base of this spadix that the flowers are borne; 
the large showy spathe being only a protecting 
covering and not the flower itself. The flow¬ 
ers are of the simplest structure, consisting for 
the male flower of a single anther and in the 
fertile flower of a single pistil, each without 
anything like calyx or corolla. The pistillate 
flowers are crowded together in a band around 
the base of the spadix, with the staminate ones 
in another band directly above them. The en¬ 
graving will at once bring to mind the common 
Calla Lily, and the flower looks like an enor¬ 
mous lurid purple Calla without leaves, but 
still more like some of the exotic Arums. We 
ought not to take leave of this remarkable 
flower without saying something of its odor— 
to describe it is hardly possible. The eccentric 
Dr. De Wolf said that a dead dog was a true 
aristocrat, as he kept common people at a dis¬ 
tance ; so this must be among the most aristo¬ 
cratic of flowers, as but few would'venture upon 
familiarities with it. Dr. Wight says of an In¬ 
dian species, A. campanulatum, that its odor 
was such “ as to induce flies to cover the club 
of the spadix with their eggs.” The flies may 
be pardoned for their mistake if the odor of 
that species was like that of this. It is not a 
desirable plant for house culture, but a most 
striking one upon the lawn, and as the flowers 
appear before the leaves they can be cut away 
before they open. As the tubers multiply 
rapidly, and are kept with no more care than 
is required by the Dahlia, we think it will 
AMORPHOPHALLUS RIVIERI. 
become popular with those who like odd things. 
The plant was first brought into notice by M. 
Biviere, director of a garden near Algiers, who 
found a minute tuber accidentally mixed with 
some seeds sent from Cochin China, and to 
whom the species was dedicated. The generic 
name, Amorphophallus , might be translated, an 
unshapely club, probably because the club-like 
spadix is flattened and irregular in form. 
The Preservation of Celery. 
BY PETEIt HENDERSON. 
serve it during the winter. Market gardeners, 
who store away large quantities, preserve it in 
narrow trenches in the open ground, and pro¬ 
tect it by means of a covering of leaves or lit¬ 
ter, as already described in your pages and in 
“ Gardening for Profit ”; but for smaller grow¬ 
ers, either for sale or for private use, quite a 
quantity may be preserved in any cellar where 
there is no furnace or other fire heat. When a 
few hundred roots only are to be stored, it can 
be placed in narrow boxes, say nine inches 
wide, four or six feet in length, and of a depth 
a little less than the height of the celery. A 
few inches of sand or soil is placed on the bot¬ 
tom, and the celery is packed in the box up¬ 
right, the roots being 
placed on the sand at 
the bottom; the cel¬ 
ery must be packed 
in as tight as possible, 
but without bruising. 
Boxes thus packed 
and stood on the cool 
floor of the cellar, 
if put away in November, will be “ blanched ” 
fit for use during January, February, and 
March. If put in sooner than November, it 
will blanch earlier, and if stored later it will 
keep later. If larger -quantities are to be kept 
in the cellar, the cheapest practicable way to 
do so is to begin at one side next the wall, 
farthest from the entrance, and erect boards 
across the cellar, nine inches from the wall, 
and of a height a little less than the length of 
the celery—that is, if the celery is twenty-four 
inches in length, the boarding may be eighteen 
or twenty inches high. In this narrow division 
the celery is packed in upright, as above de¬ 
scribed for packing in boxes. As soon as the 
first tier is filled, erect another board trench or 
division at nine inches distant from the first, 
and so on until the whole space required is 
filled up. It will be understood that no 
soil or sand is packed between the stalks of 
celery, only two or three inches being strewn 
on the floor, on which the roots are placed. A 
cellar or root-house so packed; 20 x 20 feet, will 
hold from 3,000 to 5,000 roots of celery, accord¬ 
ing to their size. Care must be taken not to 
get the board partitions forming the trenches 
or divisions between the tiers of celery more 
than nine or ten inches apart, for if at much 
greater distance, the stems and leaves would be 
in too large masses and would generate heat 
and soon decays . - ./;. • 
As the cellar or root-house is usually a damp 
and dark apartment, there will generally be no 
necessity to water the celery after it is packed. 
Every means of ventilation should be used, 
even in cold weather, for it must always be 
borne in mind that celery is a vegetable that 
will stand quite a severe frost without injury, 
so if the temperature of the cellar falls five or 
six degrees below the freezing point, no injury 
will be done. When celery or other vegetables 
are packed away for preservation in cellars or 
in the open field, it is indispensable that no 
water be allowed to lodge in the pit or trench; 
so that in the event of using a cellar or root- 
house for this purpose, a matter of first im¬ 
portance is to provide for thorough drainage, 
in soils where drainage is at all necessary. 
Spring is hardly the proper season in which 
to describe an operation that can only be done 
on the approach of winter, but I am convinced 
that many of your readers would cultivate ce¬ 
lery, were they sure that they could easily pre- 
The Weeping Poplar is now being written 
up abroad, and this will probably convince our 
planters what we have for years insisted upon, 
that it is one of the most valuable of lawn 
trees. It should be grafted eight feet high. 
