MISS MARY E. MARTIN, FLORAL PARK, NEW YORK. 
17 
Watch it Grow 11 
If you. wish a vine that will grow anywhere, in the best 
or poorest soil, then plant the Chinese Kudzu, It will 
flourish where nothing else will grow, and will last for 
twenty-five years or more. 
The large, bold leaves of the brightest green afford a 
dense shade. The clusters of purple Wistaria-like flowers, 
6 to 7 inches long, are deliciously fr&ganfc, but its greatest 
feature is its wonderfully strong growth (12 inches in a 
day), which makes it invaluable for rapidly covering arbors, 
fences, porches, dead or old trees, rockeries, etc. As such it 
was recommended by “Garden and Forest,” “American 
Gardening,” “ Meehan’s Monthly,” and other reliable jour¬ 
nals, as well as by such eminent authorities as Mr. Watson, 
of the Royal Kew Gardens; Mr. Olmsted, of World’a Fair 
fame, and Mr. Thomas Meehan, in whose garden it has been 
growing since 1876 ! In the Hakone Mountains, much visited 
by tourists, the Kudzu fills the air with fragrance. The vine 
is, of course, very hardy, grows to a height of 50 feeh if per¬ 
mitted, and is well filled with dense foliage close to the 
ground, but may be kept down by cutting back. 
Packet, 2Q seeds, I©®, 
Soak the seed in warm water for 6 hours before planting. 
Start inside in pots or boxes, and transplant outside, where 
it is wanted to grow, when the plants are 4 to 6 inches 
high. The enormous growths mentioned by these various 
authorities of course refer to established plants, and not to 
seeds the first year, although the second year they make 
enormous growths. 
Good plants are 40c. each; 3 for SI,00. 
Medium sized plants, very thrifty, 25c. each. 
“ Jack-and-the-Beanstalk Vine.” 
(Pueraria Thunbergiana). 
Photograph of a plant growing on the grounds of THOMAS Meehan 
& Sons. 
What Mr. Meehan , of the celebrated Nursery firm of 
Thomas Meehan Is? Sons, says ; 
“ Sticklers for the right must kindly excuse me heading 
these notes with the name given instead of the correct one, 
“ Fueraria Thunbergiana,’’ but old names hang to us and 
it seems like giving the cut to an old friend to give this 
plant a new designation. 
“ This vine has been given much notice of late on ac¬ 
count of its enormous annual growth. Shoots of 50 feet in a season are not at all uncommon. It is such a rapid 
grower that it must have lots of room ; and for this reason common porches and similar structures are unsuited for 
it. What it wants is a pergola, or something on which it can entwine itself to reach the top of a tall building or tree- 
it wants no enticement to make more growth than any other vine in cultivation known in our nurseries of to day' 
“ The foliage of this vine is not unlike that of the Lima bean, but it belongs to the family of wistarias, and, like 
those vines, has racemes of flowers 6 to 8 inches in length ; the blossoms are rose colored and fragrant. But instead 
of the racemes drooping, as they do in wistaria, they are erect. The plant, when in bloom, continues to flower for 
about six weeks. When grown to something overhead, such as a pergola, the flowers are free to the vision, but 
when growing to a tree, or similar object, the growth is so rapid as to overlap the blooms, and one sometimes does 
not know tire vine is flowering till admonished to look for the flowers by the odor when passing, or those that have 
iallen. It is a most useful vine because of its rapid growth, and one which inav be considered quite hardy ; as, no 
matter if its shoots are hurt by cold, it springs up and grows like magic as soon as the season opens. 
Joseph Meehan.’’ 
This Vine is one of the greatest wonders of the plant kingdom. 
THE FAMOUS CHINESE “ KUDZU.” 
[jack and the 
Beanstalk Vine” 
(Pueraria Thunbergiana.) 
“ It is a veritable Jack and the Beanstalk 
Vine.”— A. H. Olmsted, Esq., in Meehan’s 
Monthly. 
“ There is possibly nothing like it in the whole 
vegetable kingdom. It is extremely valuable 
for rapidly covering anything in one season, 
and interesting to the lover of the wonderful. 
It has grown on our grounds 70 feet in one sea¬ 
son.” —Mr. Thomas Meehan. 
