342 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
January 30, 1892. 
floriculture. 
Pansies,’Violas, etc. 
I noticed under the above heading in your last 
week’s issue some very seasonable hints to growers 
of these popular flowers/but there is one point which 
I cannot understand, and that is, how the east wind 
so injuriously affects the Pansy in the south. In the 
central districts of Scotland we have no such ex¬ 
perience, at least worth speaking of. A frosty wind 
either from the north-west or north-east will slightly 
hurt soft, newly-planted-out plants, but if really 
sound they very soon recover when a favourable 
change of weather sets in. If the weather is mild 
and showery Pansy plants will often look quite fresh 
and healthy, even although the stems are rotten or 
cut under the surface by slugs or wireworms, but 
these go quickly down before a cold, drying wind. 
I think to some such cause must be attributed the 
dying off of plants in the south during the prevalent 
east winds of spring. So far as my experience in 
Pansy growing in this quarter has gone, I have 
found that a thoroughly sound, strong, vigorous 
plant will not succumb to any kind of weather if 
properly planted. 
When many of the Pansy plants have damped off 
in the frames, it is a good plan to disturb the soil 
as little as possible when lifting the others to 
plant out, and to water it well with tepid water. It 
is often surprising how many will spring up with 
this treatment if the position is favourable and the 
sun gets well on the glass, and these, too, are gener¬ 
ally the best for producing good blooms in autumn. 
■ — Veritas. 
SOME VEGETABLE 
WONDERS. 
We take the following extracts from a paper read by 
Mr. C. B. Green at a recent meeting of the Ealing 
Gardeners’ Mutual Improvement Association :— 
As trees have ever been a subject replete with inte¬ 
rest to the lover of Nature, and as some approximation 
to the truth, as regards their age, can be ascertained 
by reference to the rings annually deposited, the 
consideration of these may not be unworthy of the 
premier place. Perhaps the most ancient of all arbo¬ 
real vegetation, then, are the celebrated dragon trees 
which have made the island of Teneriffe famous. 
There is one—or was — at Orotava, considered by 
Humboldt, a faithful recorder of the phenomena of 
Nature, to be not less than i,ooo years old. It is 
stated to have been as large and as hollow in 1402 as it 
was found by Humboldt in the last century. In 1819 a 
storm deprived this aged monster of part of its 
crown, and in 1867 the work of destruction was com¬ 
pleted by a gale of wind. Paintings of this “ ancient 
mariner ” may be seen at Kew, in the Marianne 
North Gallery, which will well repay inspection. 
Of the products of South Africa it would seem as if 
the Baobab tree was the most remarkable, for Dr. 
Livingstone describes it as "a great baby-looking 
bulb,” which reaches an enormous size and an 
astonishing age. I trust the term “ baby ” will have 
its due effect upon you ; to me it implies the opposite 
of large, in fact, my mini immediately reverts to 
something liliputian. How’ever, it is recorded that 
nothing will lull it, therefore it cannot be placed in 
the category of “delicate.” The natives bark the 
tree every year as far as they can reach—a process 
which w'ould be destructive to most trees — for the 
sake of its fibres ; from which they make a strong 
cord. This tree refuses to be injured either by fire 
or adze ; and Dr. Livingstone says the trunk is some¬ 
times hollow’, and that he himself spent a night in 
one which was big enough to hold twenty men. 
A treatise on the wonders of vegetation would 
hardly be complete without allusion to the giant 
trees of California, called Sequoias or Wellingtonias. 
These remarkable specimens of arboreal vegetation 
have been, and are, the admiration of the civilised 
world. To the native Indian, perhaps, a sight of 
these produces mingled fee.lings of awe and respect; 
certain it is that, be he native or foreigner, a visit to 
the Yosemite Valley for the first time must have its 
due effect upon him. 
“A tree is not a tree alone; a thousand thoughts 
invest it.” 
The contemplation of this vast grove must neces¬ 
sarily induce feeling akin to wonder ; and in the 
solitude what thoughts will not be suggested to us ? 
“ Our life, exempt from public haunt, 
Finds tongues in trees.” 
This grove contains nearly one hundred big speci¬ 
mens of Sequoia gigantea, growing out of the thick 
forest. 
The “ father ” is prostrate, measures 435 feet in 
length, and no feet in circumference. He must 
have been much longer when upright. His interior 
in places is tunnelled out to aheight of 10 feet. The 
mother has also seen better days ; she stands 327 feet 
high, and measures 90 feet round her slender waist. 
Her arms have disappeared, and her epidermis also 
suffered severely from the ravages of age and fire. 
On the subject of trees one could dilate for 
hours, but the progression of time forbids it; so 
the Oaks and other giants of our own country, to the 
wonderful Olives of Palestine, the Cedars of Lebanon, 
or the Tree-ferns of New Zealand, must give place to 
other forms of vegetable matter. 
I cannot resist, however, a quotation from Baron 
Munchausen, which I promise you shall be the last; 
and although I am aware that 
“An honest tale speeds best,” 
yet I am inclined to believe that a little spice occa¬ 
sionally will not materially interfere with the 
process of digestion. I therefore make no comment 
on the following, but implore you to award'the praise 
or blame to the great Baron himself, from whom I 
cull the story :— 
It is written that the Baron “ in voyaging from 
Amsterdam to Ceylon relates, that the only circum¬ 
stance which happened worth recording, was the 
wonderful effects of a storm, which had torn up by 
the roots a great number of trees of enormous bulk 
and height in an island where we lay at anchor to 
take in wood and water. Some of these trees 
weighed many tons, yet they were carried by the 
wind so exceedingly high that they appeared like the 
feathers of small birds floating in the [air, for they 
were at least five miles from the earth. However, 
as soon as the storm subsided they all fell perpendi¬ 
cularly into their respective places and took root 
again—except the largest, which happened, when it 
was blown into the air, to have a man and his wife, 
a very honest old couple,upon its branches gathering 
Cucumbers (in this part of the globe that useful 
vegetable grows upon trees) ; the weight of this 
couple, as the tree descended overbalanced the 
trunk and brought it down in a horizontal position ; 
it fell upon the chief man of the island and killed 
him on the spot; of course the honest old couple 
were amply rewarded, for they were chosen by the 
people for their governors, as a mark of gratitude 
for destroying, though accidentally, their late 
tyrant.” 
I would elicit your attention towards a more won¬ 
derful example of the prodigality of nature, viz. 
Rafflesia Arnoldi. This remarkable plant was dis¬ 
covered in the island of Sumatra in the year 1818, 
by Dr. Arnold and Sir Stamford Raffles ; hence its 
name. The news of this extraordinary “find” created 
at the time a large amount of curiosity in Europe, 
and no papers ever read before the Linnaean 
Society can be compared, for the interest they excited, 
with those in which the illustrious Robert Brown 
described this wonder of the vegetable world. Its 
most striking feature, perhaps, is its enormous size; 
indeed, it is the largest and most magnificent flower 
in the world. The five petals of which it is 
composed are each a foot across, and of a brick-red 
colour, with numerous irregular yellowish-white 
swellings. The cup, or fleshy disc from which these 
radiate, is also nearly a foot across, and this 
receptacle when cleared of its fleshy contents, is said 
to be capable of containing twelve pints of water ! 
A flower of such dimensions is quite out of 
question for a button-hole ; and, moreover, the 
“delicate aroma” arising from the fully-expanded 
blossom is not of roses or violets, but rather resembles 
the odour of tainted beef! When I say that its 
weight is about fifteen pounds, and the whole 
character of the blossom gross and fleshy, you will 
doubtless agree with me that it is hardly a suitable 
subject for the drawing-room table. I refrain from 
further description, but recommend everyone who 
takes the slightest interest in this abnormity to visit 
No. 1 Museum, in Kew Gardens, where an exact 
model in wax has been prepared. 
SELAGINELLAS. 
Independent of varieties which have been found in 
a wild state as well as those that have originated in 
gardens, about 313 species are known to science. Of 
course only a relatively small number of these are 
cultivated, and a still smaller number are in general 
cultivation. It is surprising, however, that so many 
of the varieties of popular species should find favour 
with gardeners and cultivators generally ; but it is a 
penalty we have to pay whenever any garden plant 
becomes popular. Whenever anything distinct ap¬ 
pears in a plant that is already well known, horti¬ 
culturists rush it to the front and receive a ready 
response from cultivators. 
Like Ferns, the bulk of the Selaginellas are 
notable for their grace and elegance, or for their 
utility in clothing rockeries in hothouses in the case 
of creeping species, as well as for furnishing pots 
and pans for general decorative purposes. The 
greater number of species require a stove tempera¬ 
ture, but the more popular species, including some 
of the most ornamental, can be grown to perfection 
in a greenhouse or conservatory, except that after 
repotting or making up fresh pans of cuttings, a 
higher temperature with a closer and moister atmos¬ 
phere are desirable for a time. They prefer shade 
to full exposure, retaining their particular hue of 
colour under the former condition, but assume a 
yellowish-green hue when subjected to sunshine and 
a dry atmosphere. The compost for Selaginellas 
should be light and open, using plenty of charcoal 
or broken potsherds with that object in view. 
Plenty of moisture should be given during the grow¬ 
ing season, keeping the plants rather drier in winter 
to prevent damping of the dwarf, close-growing and 
thin-leaved species such as S. apus and S. Kraus- 
siana. 
S. Martensii.— With exception of S. Kraussiana, 
this is the commonest species in gardens, and is 
therefore to be reckoned one of the most useful for 
ordinary purposes. The stems of the typical form 
are trailing in the lower part, and throw out long 
forking roots which ultimately fix themselves in the 
soil. The branches are given off in a pinnate or even 
a fan-shaped manner, and in healthy, well grown 
plants produce a very effective appearance. The 
varieties of this in cultivation are numerous and 
varied. One of the most distinct is S. M. divaricata, 
which has fewer and more distantly arranged branches, 
and smaller leaves with longer intervals between 
them. It is often grown in pots or pans, but would 
be more suitable for planting out on a rockery, or a 
similar place where it could be allowed to spread 
over the ground. The variety S. M. robusta is one 
of the most serviceable for pot work on account of 
its compact, erect habit, and sturdy appearance. 
The variegated form S. M. variegata has the 
branches and leaves variously splashed with creamy- 
white, and when the variegation is well mixed the 
appearance is pleasing. It is evidently a variegated 
form of S. M. robusta judging from its habit. 
S. Kraussiana.— Scarcely a garden is without a 
greater or less quantity of this species, which is best 
known under the name of Lycopodium denticulatum, 
a name that can hardly be obliterated from the 
gardeners' notebook. It is a native of various parts 
of the world in widely remote localities, so that we 
cannot be surprised at its being amenable to culture 
under a variety of conditions, both in the stove and 
greenhouse. In some localities, even in the far north, 
it has been grown for a number of years in succession 
in sheltered parts of an outdoor fernery under the 
shade of hard}’ ferns. The uses indoors to which it 
may be put are so numerous that they need not be 
enumerated. The variety S. K. Brownii bears the 
same relation to the type as S. Martensii robusta 
does to that species. It is remarkably dwarf in habit, 
compact, and suitable for culture in pots or pans. 
There are two variegated varieties, one with silvery 
branches and leaves, and another with the tips of 
the shoots of a golden hue, more especially in the 
young state, when it is highly ornamental. 
S. Braunii.— For greenhouse culture generally 
there are few more serviceable species than this. 
It is known under various names such as S. pubescens 
and Lycopodium Willdenovii, the latter being 
altogether erroneous even if we modify the name 
to Selaginella Willdenovii, because there is already a 
species of that name and an altogther different plant. 
The stems rarely exceed a foot or 15 in. in height, and 
are generally of the former height, although high cuj* 
