1874] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
183 
out a fine yellow dust, the pollen. Unless 
this pollen, or that of some other grape, falls 
upon the proper part of the pistil, which in this 
case is the flattened disk at the top, it will pro¬ 
duce no seeds. It is not necessary here to state 
what is known of the way in which fertiliza¬ 
tion takes place. Practically there must be a 
pistil to be fertilized and pollen to fertilize it. 
In the grape these are both provided in the 
same flower; in Indian corn, the squash, and 
all of that family, one set of flowers has the 
pistils and another' set the stamens which fur¬ 
nish the pollen. In the hop, spinach, and 
others, the pistil bearing and pollen producing 
flowers are on different plants. The grape was 
taken as an illustration, and let us continue 
with that. In the ordinary course of things 
the pollen will fall upon the stigma and fertil¬ 
ize it, or if the pollen of this flower is not quite 
ready to be scattered and the pistil is ready to 
receive it, the pollen from another flower close 
by may fall upon the pistil and complete the 
work. Now to cross this grape, which we will 
assume to be the Clinton, with another, we will 
say the Black Hamburgh, we have to attend to 
three tilings: We must prevent this flower 
from being fertilized 
by its own pollen; we 
must bring to it the 
pollen of the Black 
Hamburgh and, after 
applying this, prevent 
any pollen from 
another Clinton flow¬ 
er being brought by 
winds or insects to 
this pistil. The pe¬ 
tals of a grape flower 
fall off as a little cap; 
when this is about to fall off it is removed, and 
all the stamens, before they have shed their 
pollen, are cut away. Some are so expert as to 
be able to pinch them off. This prevents the 
flower from fertilizing itself, and is done early 
in the morning. In practice several flowers on 
a bunch are prepared and all the rest cut off. 
The pollen of the Black Hamburgh must be 
at hand. This is collected from the flowers of 
that variety by holding a sheet of paper under 
the flower clusters and shaking them. When 
the day is warm and the air dry, pollen in 
great abundance is shed by the anthers. The 
pollen when collected is carefully preserved in 
a small bottle or, if not to be kept long, in a 
paper. Grape pollen will keep in good condi¬ 
tion for some weeks, and that of other plants 
has been known 
to preserve its vi¬ 
tality for months. 
The maturity of 
the pistil is 
known in the 
grape by the 
moist appearance 
of the stigma, as 
that portion 
which receives 
the pollen is called; and by means of a camel’s 
hair brush some of the foreign pollen is placed 
upon the stigma, and then the flowers that have 
been thus operated upon are inclosed in a muslin 
bag to prevent insects from bringing other 
pollen to them, as this might interfere with the 
action of that already applied. This is the 
briefest outline of the manner of crossing or 
hybridizing the grape. If a novice wishes to 
try the process upon some other plant, the 
first difficulty he will meet with is that the 
flower is quite different in .appearance from 
the grape, and he is at loss to discover the 
I parts that appeared so plain in the grape 
flower. All flowers are constructed upon the 
j same plan, but the variations in carrying out 
the details are truly wonderful, and unless one 
knows the variations of which all the parts are 
susceptible he will be puzzled. Compare the 
potato flower, fig. 2, 
with the grape flower. 
In the grape the stamens 
are longer than the 
pistil, and stand out 
from it, and the fila¬ 
ments are long in com¬ 
parison with the an¬ 
thers. In the potato 
the stamens are shorter 
than the pistil, and are 
crowded close to it; the 
anthers, which in the 
grape were small, are 
here longer than the 
filaments, and instead 
of opening by a slit 
to let out the pollen it makes its escape through 
little holes in their tops. Here are all the parts 
that are in the grape flower, but wonderfully 
modified. Another variation is all we can 
show. Fig. 3 is a lilac flower cut open. Here 
the novice will be puzzled to find two stamens 
only, and these stuck fast to the tube of the 
corolla. A mere outline of the matter can only 
be given here, but enough has been said to show 
that whoever would undertake artificial fertili¬ 
zation must give some thought to the matter. 
The whole subject of natural fertilization is 
full of interest and abounds in curious facts, 
and is worthy the study of any intelligent per¬ 
son, even if he does not wish to make any prac¬ 
tical use of the insight he may gain of the 
workings of nature. It may be mentioned 
here that a French florist, whose name we have 
forgotten, has recently found it to be a great 
aid in his fertilizing operations to touch the 
stigma of the pistil with honey, and that by 
thus doing his success is much more uniform 
than before. It is probable that the honey 
serves to retain the pollen until the stigma is 
ready to receive its influence. 
The Vanilla Plant. 
BT H. G. LUNGREN, H.D. 
[By Vanilla plant we do not refer to the plant 
which furnishes vanilla, but to a native species, 
Liatris odoratissima, which, on account of a si¬ 
milarity of odor, has received that name. Most 
of the species of Liatris or Button-snakeroot, 
have a tuber-like root, and long straight stems 
upon which the numerous flower-heads are 
crowded in a close spike. A number of these 
are cultivated as ornamental plants, and we 
figured several of them a few years ago. In 
L. odoratissima, the root-leaves are from 8 to 
12 inches long by 2 or 3 broad; those of the 
stem very small. The stem divides above into 
a broad branching panicle of purple flowers, 
which make the plant an attractive one. Our 
correspondent, Doctor H. G. Lungren, of Volu¬ 
sia Co., Fla., has at our request given us the 
following account of the plant.— Ed.] 
The Wild Vanilla, or, as it is commonly 
called, “ Hound’s Tongue,” or “ Deer Tongue,” 
grows abundantly on the edges of what are 
called “ Bays,” i. e., low mucky places in the 
pine woods, which are partially covered with 
water and grown over with bays (a species of 
Magnolia), or on low swampy pine woods in 
East and South Florida at d in portions of 
lower Georgia. The fresu leaf has, when 
crushed, a greenish, disagreeable odor, but 
when pulled from the plant and dried in the 
shade for a day or so, it becomes highly fra¬ 
grant, having a smell resembling vanilla or 
Tonka-bean, and similar to the sweet-scented 
vernal grass, but much stronger. This odor is 
developed by some chemical change made in 
the leaf during the process of drying, whereby 
a peculiar principle known as Coumarine is 
formed. Coumarine is found abundantly in the 
Tonka-bean of commerce, but so abundant is 
it in the Liatris, that it is often found in large 
quantities on the upper portions of a mass of 
the semi-dried leaves. It is readily sublimed 
by a low degree of heat (150°), and the heat 
generated in these masses or bundles is suffi¬ 
cient to sublime it on the upper or cooler layer. 
When found in this way, Coumarine is com¬ 
posed of snow-white, needle-shaped crystals, 
exceedingly fragrant—a leaf of the Liatris 
often being covered on its under side, and 
looking as though it had been out all night in 
cold, frosty weather. 
The dried leaves furnish an article of com¬ 
merce, and one that is steadily growing in im¬ 
portance. It is gathered all through East and 
South Florida, principally on the St. John’s 
river and its tributaries, by the poorer people, 
and sold by them in small lots to the country 
store-keeper in • exchange for goods; by these 
store-keepers it is sent to the balers and pack¬ 
ers, by whom it is sent to New York for home 
use and exportation. Pilatka, on the St. John’s 
river, is the head-quarters in this trade. One 
may often see seventy-five or one hundred 
bales, of 200 lbs. each, lying on the wharves, 
awaiting shipment—one dealer at this place 
having an order to fill of 150,000 lbs. Adults 
can gather from 150 to 400 lbs. of the green 
leaves in a day; active boys and girls nearly 
as much. The green leaves are taken home 
and dried in the shade, and lose about 80 or 85 
per cent; they are, when dried, sold at the 
country stores for from 3 to 6 cents per lb., 
yielding quite a good return for the labor. The 
packer bales and ships, and realizes from 8 to 
12| cts. per lb. The dried leaves are used to 
give a flavor to segars, snuff, and smoking to¬ 
bacco. For segars, it is sufficient to place the 
leaves and segars in alternate layers in a box, 
and allow the whole to remain together for 
several days; for snuff, the leaves are dried, 
ground, and mixed ; it is granulated or shredded 
up and mixed with smoking tobacco. A sm .ll 
quantity is sufficient to flavor a large mass of 
tobacco. The odor is given off much more in¬ 
tensely on a damp day than on a dry one. Al¬ 
though large quantities of these leaves are 
consumed in our home factories, a much larger 
quantity is shipped to Germany and France 
direct, where it is rapidly growing in favor. 
It is quite probable that it will soon be an 
article used extensively in perfumery ; and as 
it is known to keep “ the wicked moth away,” 
it will be in great demand for that purpose 
in the stead of the strong-smelling camphor 
and tobacco stems. 
The Pale Corydalis. 
As we were, a few years ago, inspecting the 
grounds of a well-known amateur cultivator 
of flowers, he said: “ Come and see a new 
Dicentra that I have just flowered.” We went, 
and found the Pale Corydalis, Corydalis glauca, 
which we had never before seen in cultivation 
