252 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
December 20, 1890. 
upwards of sixty fronds each ; when measured horizon¬ 
tally, from apex to apex of the fronds, they exceed 6 ft. 
The plants are tastefully arranged along with other 
Ferns (strange to say) in a lean-to house with a northern 
aspect. The photograph I send you does not by any 
means do this superb house of Todeas justice, but it 
will convey to you some conception of their grandeur. 
This lovely class of plants, with their rich transparent 
foliage, is, alas, seldom seen in plant collections now. 
—J. McNab. 
Cotoneaster frigida. 
When allowed to grow at the freedom of its will this 
species forms a large bush about 10 ft. or 12 ft. high, 
although in its native country it grows much taller. 
The leaves are elliptical, somewhat leathery, and of 
large size compared with most other species of Coton¬ 
easter. Large corymbs of white flowers are produced 
during the months of April and May, and these are 
succeeded by scarlet fruits, which ripen in September, 
and hang on the plants during great part of winter, 
provided a scarcity of food does not drive the birds to 
eat them. Hitherto the weather has been open, and 
the fruits still hang and appear to advantage now that 
the leaves have partly fallen. C. affinis is frequently 
confused with this species, and the plant often appears 
under the latter name. C. frigida is a native of the 
higher mountains of Nepaul, and has elliptic leaves, 
while C. affinis, according to description, has ovate 
leaves ; but according to illustration, they are obovate, 
and considerably the wider above the middle. The 
latter also would appear to be a geographical form, as 
it comes from the lower regions of Nepaul. 
Polypodium glaucophyllum. 
Few of the Polypodiums in cultivation, having the same 
habit as this one, present the same striking peculiarities 
and beauty. The fronds vary from 6 ins. to 16 ins. 
long, according to vigour, and are lanceolate, quite 
entire, with a long acuminate point. The upper 
surface is glaucous green, but the under surface is 
almost white or silvery in its hue. Along this the 
bold and conspicuous orange coloured sori are arranged 
in three to six parallel rows, shown off to advantage on 
the erect fronds. The rhizomes are of moderate 
strength, with the leaves thinly scattered over them ; 
and what is peculiar, they are of a glaucous colour, like 
the leaves. They are also thinly covered with brown 
scales, similar to those covering the mid-rib of the 
leaves beneath. The species is also known under the 
name of Goniophlebium glaucophyllum, but is not 
much grown by cultivators generally. It may be 
grown in a pot or basket, preferably the latter, as it 
will have more room to develop to its best extent, and 
appear to advantage. Specimens may be seen in the 
gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society, at Chiswick. 
-- 
PLANTING FRUIT TREES. 
At p. 153, your correspondent “ A. D.” says he does 
not know why I should assume that the majority of 
fruit trees are planted too deep, and goes on to say that 
the statement is not now in accordance with facts. The 
f dlowing clause in his remarks as to deep planting 
being injurious, and shallow planting, when consistent 
with safety, bein'g productive of early fruitfulness, meets 
my views entirely. I presume all who plant fruit trees 
like to have early returns ; and doubtless, like myself, 
make that their ideal. I have yet to learn that fruit 
trees are planted with the view of making timber, but 
will willingly accept the happy medium. We un¬ 
doubtedly expect them to make wood, but wood of a 
fruitful character—short-jointed, solid, and conse¬ 
quently in a state for ripening in the early autumn, and 
capable of withstanding the rigours of our severest 
winters. Such wood will produce what we hope for— 
abundant blossom, and (weather permitting) an abun¬ 
dant harvest of useful fruit. On the contrary, wood of 
an opposite character — long-jointed, pithy, and 
“ gosky,” will inevitably fail in producing anything 
but leaves, and more wood as growth advances. 
Perhaps I might have made the remark referred to a 
little more explicit, and dealt with the composition of 
soils, situations, &c., but having done so in a previous 
paper on “Preparing for Planting Fruit Trees,” it did 
not occur to me to make a repetition. I have pleasure, 
however, in referring “A. D.” to p. 92, where he will 
find matters more in detail. It may be that he is 
favoured with climatic conditions very favourable to 
the proper consolidation of wood, or his soil may 
be so thin and over-porous that he objects to shallow 
planting ; but there are few places in Scotland where 
deep planting is a success, for reasons already patent 
to “A. D.” and others. Before quitting this subject, 
I would like to remark that I have no desire to enlighten 
the already enlightened, but write to help those who 
may not, or cannot help themselves. 
Referring to the supporting of trees, I am not a little 
surprised to find “A. D.” saying a little play is good 
for both tops and roots ; while I naturally coincide with 
him when he says it checks too strong an upward rush 
of sap. Few would object to the tops of their trees 
having a little play if the roots could be kept rigid, but 
unfortunately the roots thus moved by every wind that 
blew would not gain a hold of the soil, and in con¬ 
tinuous rains would produce a “puddle” and render 
the soil thus acted upon pasty and sour. Of course, as 
trees become established, a little blowing about may 
not hurt them ; yet if they are at all loose at the roots 
it would be advisable to put that right. To keep a 
tree—newly planted—rigid, and prevent the slightest 
shaking at the roots has ever been the aim of the best 
and most successful planters, and I doubt not is so 
still.— J. Proctor, Glenfinart. 
-- 
ENGLISH NAMES OF COMMON 
FRUITS. 
Modern names have in many cases been so corrupted 
in the spelling from the original words, that it is often 
difficult to recognise the true or real meaning. This 
may be accounted for to some extent by the ancient 
languages being spoken by the masses generally, 
whereas they were written by the learned few only. 
Then, again, when civilised races, nations or com¬ 
munities became over-populated and sent out colonies 
to distant lands, the bulk of these undoubtedly con¬ 
sisted of the illiterate, labouring or warrior classes, who 
carried with them their most useful fruits, flowers and 
herbs, or vegetables. The conquered, in adopting the 
names of these things from their conquerors, would 
doubtless accommodate the new names in part to their 
own ideas, pronunciation and spelling. Hence not 
merely the names of particular plants would become 
changed, but the whole language would become 
modified or the original one entirely suppressed, accord¬ 
ing to the number of the invaders, their dominance 
and the duration of their occupancy of the land. 
Mel or Mai was the name used by the Celts for the 
Apple. The Greeks and Romans, both younger or more 
recent races than the Celts, changed the name into 
Melon and Malus respectively ; whence the botanical 
name. The Gaels, a modern branch of the Celts, called 
it abhul, and more recently ubhal; and the Anglo- 
Saxons rendered it cepl, which comes very near our 
modern Apple. The Romans possessed at least twenty- 
two sorts of Apples, some culinary and others dessert 
kinds, which they no doubt introduced to Britain, for 
sweet Apples appear to have been extensively cultivated 
in the Highlands before a.d. 470. 
The word Pear, in like manner, comes from the 
Celtic peren, which the Latins translated as pyrum ; 
hence the origin both of the botanical and English 
names. In 1573 the English name was peer, and is so 
pronounced in Scotland amongst the middle or work¬ 
ing classes to this day. Plum in Anglo Saxon was 
plume, and in French prune; that again came from 
the Latin prunum. The Gaelic name for the wild Plum 
is plnmbais fiadhainn; but to the Romans we must look 
for the improved Plum, of which they had a host of 
kinds. The Damson is a corruption from daniascena, 
the Damascus Plum. The Bullace is derived, 
according to good authorities, from the Celtic, and 
is represented by the "Welsh biolas, and the Gaelic and 
Irish bulastair. The much-disputed name Apricots 
was called Apricockes in England over 300 
years ago. The Greeks called them Armeniaca, but 
the Romans, according to Dioscorides (a.d. 60), 
called them prai-kokia, from prcccox, early, meaning 
early ripe. The Cherry simply comes from Cerasus, the 
name of a town on the Black Sea, from whence the 
Cherry was imported to Italy. An intermediate form 
of the word is the French cerise. Medlar is a corrup¬ 
tion of the Latin Mespilus, as is the old French meslier. 
The Latin name is supposed to be derived from the 
Greek mesos, half, and pilos, a bullet, in allusion to 
the shape of the fruit. The Quince again is derived 
from the French coign or coignassa, Pear-quince ; that 
again from the Latin Cotonia, from Cydonia in the 
Island of Crete, where the tree abounds. 
Grape, the word we now apply to the berry of the 
Vine, originally referred to the bunch or cluster, and 
meant that which can be grasped. This will be under¬ 
stood by reference to the French Grappe de Raisins and 
the Welsh grab, a cluster. Raisin itself originally 
meant a berry, from the Greek rase, a berry ; but 
we now universally recognise a raisin as a dried 
grape. More than 300 years ago the word was spelt 
reison in England, and previous to that was called 
raisin de Corance, from which we have the modern 
currants of the shops, and which are small dried 
raisins or Grapes from Corinth, in Greece, where they 
were grown. The Red Currant of our gardens was 
called the Beyond-sea Gooseberry in the time of 
Rembert Dodoens (1578), and St. John’s Grape in high 
German. The old English name was raisin tree ; while 
the Scotch called it rizzar or rizzart, both corruptions 
from the French raisin, just as our modern name, 
Currant, is a corruption of Corinth. Red, white, and 
black are simply adjective names to indicate the 
respective sorts. Gooseberry has no connection with 
the well-known bird whose name is imitated. It is 
said to be a corruption of the German kraus or krausel- 
beere, the rough berry from the hairy skin. Others 
derive it from Grossularia, and that from grossulus the 
diminutive of grossus, a small half ripe Fig. The 
Scotch name the Gooseberry, grozet, grozel, or grozert, 
in some cases to this day. 
The common Chestnut is supposed by some to derive 
its name from the Latin Castanea, and that from 
Castana, a town in Pontus, where the tree is abundant. 
John Cameron thinks, however, that the town received 
the name of Castana “on account of the virtues of its 
female population. If so, the English name Chestnut 
would mean chaste-nut, as in the Gaelic.” This is 
geanm, chaste love, and cno, a nut; therefore chraobh 
geanm-chno is the chaste-nut tree. Nut itself means a 
little knot, and comes from the Anglo-Saxon knut and 
the Gaelic cno or cnuth. Walnut is simply the foreign 
nut, a tree of Asia and America, and is derived from 
the Anglo-Saxon wealh, a foreigner, and knut. The 
fruit therefore has no connection with a wall any more 
than the Gooseberry has with a goose. Filbert is a 
corruption for Fill Beard, and in 157-3 this was Filberd 
in English.— F. 
-- 
CASSIA CORYMBOSA. 
It would be difficult to overrate the value of this fine 
plant for autumn decoration. The more one sees of it 
the more one is convinced of this fact. It gives a 
colour quite its own, and one much needed in the 
autumn months. In whatever position or to what 
use this plant is put, it is always striking and beautiful. 
At Cricket St. Thomas, Chard, it is used to very 
good effect by Mr. Lyon, who has charge of those 
gardens. At the mansion there are some colonnades 
which lead from one conservatory to another, the walls 
being high, and in one of them are planted out large 
specimens of the Cassia. In the autumn months they 
are a mass of bloom, and cover the wall from top to 
bottom. I took note of the size of one of the plants, 
which I found to be 20 ft. by 10 ft. to 12 ft. The 
long ash-like leaves are quite an ornament in them¬ 
selves, but when adorned with the long spikes of 
bright orange-yellow flowers, the effect is most striking. 
In another portion of this colonnade were planted out 
against the wall, plants of this Cassia and scarlet 
Pelargoniums trained up so as to mix together. 
In this way they made a most gay picture. When a 
wall is covered in this way from top to bottom, as it is 
here, the effect produced is such as is seldom seen. 
The Cassias are planted here in the spring, at the 
same time as the Pelargoniums, after having been 
wintered in a large Camellia house close by, and 
although they will have made but little growth at this 
time, they soon begin to grow and cover the wall. 
One of the greatest merits of this plant is its hardiness, 
compared with many indoor plants. Mr. Lyon told 
me these Cassias kept on blooming till near Christmas 
in favourable seasons. When the weather becomes 
unsafe to allow them to remain there any longer, they 
are taken up and removed to the Camellia house, and 
trained to a trellis on the back wall, remaining there 
till the next spring. 
They appear to bear the removal admirably. Such 
fine plants as these must have taken some years to 
attain their present size, as this is by no means a fast¬ 
growing plant in a young state. It is true, when once 
established and having attained a good start, they 
grow very fast afterwards. Again, as a plant to cover 
walls in cold greenhouses, kc., where an autumn 
effect is needed, this subject is to be recommended. 
We have a plant here in our greenhouse, trained over 
an end wall. In this position it blooms very late in 
the year, and growing as it is by the side of, and some¬ 
what intermingling with a fine plant of the lovely blue 
Plumbago capensis, makes a most striking contrast 
when in full bloom. It will thrive in a somewhat 
