the white, the acute-leaved, the leafless, and the 
Cape, from the East Indies, Asia, Spain, the south 
of Europe, and the Cape of Good Hope—are ten- 
der evergreen undershrubs of about 3 and 4 feet 
in height; one species—the flexuous, from the 
Cape of Good Hope—is a tender evergreen climber 
of 3 feet in height; and two species, Smithianus 
and plocamoides, have been quite recently intro- 
duced from Teneriffe. About one-third of the 
species have green flowers, and all the others 
have white flowers. Some of the species are 
armed with strong prickles; and on that account 
give the name asparagus, which signifies ‘tearing,’ 
to the whole genus. One of the species is culi- 
nary, seven or eight are ornamental, and all the 
others are merely curious. An indigenous plant 
of England has of late years drawn considerable 
notice, and found its way somewhat extensively 
to the table, under the name of Prussian aspara- 
gus; but it is really the Ornithogalum Pyrenaicum, 
| or Pyrenean star of Bethlehem. See the article 
ORNITHOGALUM. 
The common or officinal asparagus, Asparagus 
officinalis, concentrates in itself the chief interest 
of the whole genus. It is one of the most deli- 
cate, extensively diffused, and anciently used of 
culinary vegetables. It is usually boiled and served 
without admixture, and eaten with butter and 
salt ; or the points of its shoots are cut into small 
pieces, and served in a manner similar to green 
pease. It has too delicate a flavour to be a mere 
ingredient in compound culinary preparations, 
or to admit, without detriment, of almost any 
vegetable accompaniment. The plant is thought 
to be diuretic, and is extensively employed as an 
alleviative of stone or gravel by the sedentary 
operative classes of Paris. It was in high esteem 
as a delicate esculent among the ancient Greeks 
and Romans, and it continues to be held in high 
esteem by a large portion of the modern civilized 
world. It was much praised by Cato and Colu- 
mella, and is said to have been highly relished 
by Augustus Czesar. Pliny speaks of it as grow- 
ing wild, and as also cultivated to such perfec- 
tion at Ravenna, that three heads of it weighed 
a pound. It still grows to an extraordinary size 
in Asia Minor and on the borders of the Eu- 
phrates, and is traditionally, but not very credibly, 
said to have formerly been so exuberant in these 
districts, that a man might have stood concealed 
among its plants. It now grows indigenously 
on the coasts of many parts of Europe, in some 
of the fenny districts of England, and in the in- 
land sandy plains of Russia, Turkey, and Greece ; 
and it is everywhere cultivated in gardens,—and, 
in particular, is cultivated to a very great extent 
in the vicinity of London, Paris, and Vienna. 
“In no part of the world,” remarks Loudon, “ is 
it grown to such perfection as in the market 
gardens around London. That of the parish of 
Mortlake is particularly strong and succulent: 
the soil is a sandy loam, deeply trenched, and 
well manured; the seed is sown in drills and 
ASPARAGUS. 
269 
thinned out till the plants stand six inches apart 
in the row, and the rows are a foot asunder. 
Round Paris and Vienna more pains are taken in 
preparing the soil, by forming excavations, and 
filling them with layers of turf, durable manure, 
as bones, wood chips, &c., sand, manure, loam, 
&c.; but though plantations on such beds last 
longer than on ours, they do not yield better 
shoots, and it may justly be questioned whether | 
they are equally profitable to the cultivator.” 
The cultivated asparagus is worthless in its 
English indigenous condition, but is susceptible 
of remarkably great improvement by culture; 
and, when well-managed on richly manured, 
light, and mellow loam, it eventually becomes 
luxuriant in growth, and very beautiful in ap- 
pearance. In its wild state, in the fens of Lin- 
colnshire, its shoots are not larger than straws; 
and in its first cultivated generation from wild 
seeds, it springs a week or ten days earlier than 
from garden seed, and is exceedingly sweet, but. | 
does not produce shoots of more than one-half of | 
the size of the garden plants. The young sprout- 
ing stems, as they emerge from the soil, are used | 
for the table ; but when suffered to grow to full 
size, they form one of the most graceful produc- 
tions of herbaceous vegetation. The stems as- 
cend and ramify in the manner of exceedingly | 
beautiful miniature trees; the numerous, branch- 
ing, lateral stalks are covered with innumerable, 
minute, tufted leaves, of the most lively and deli- 
cate green; and at the axille or angles of the 
smaller branches occur two or three greenish, 
bell-shaped, pendulous flowers. The plant usually 
grows to the height of about four feet, and blooms 
from June till August. ach flower consists of 
a calyx of six deeply cut segments,—six stamens, 
—one very short style, with its stigma cut into 
three divisions,—and a germen: and the fruit || 
which becomes developed from the last of these, 
is a scarlet globular berry, containing in its three 
cells one or more perfect seeds. The annual 
shoots for esculent use rise from the roots in the 
months of April, May, June, and July; and are | 
often obtained in winter, but usually in an im- 
perfect condition, by various processes of forcing. | 
Two principal varieties are in cultivation,—the 
red-topped, with reddish green, full, and close 
heads,—and the green-topped, with green heads, 
not so close and plump as those of the red-topped. 
Several subvarieties also are in extensive cultiva- 
tion, and take their name from the places where 
they were first known, as Gravesend, Battersea, 
Deptford, Reading, and Cork; but most sub- 
varieties are merely local, and scarcely any can 
be said to be propagable from seed. 
The successful and highly artistic modes of cul- 
tivating asparagus, with the view of producing it 
in full perfection, in the various countries of Eu- 
rope, are too numerous and complicated to be | 
| 
merely mentioned, much less described. The 
mode which is now in favour with the most emi- 
nent British gardeners, is to sow carefully se- 
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