Independent gardening advice for real gardens, balconies and windowsills.
Practical advice on growing food and flowers, improving soil, and making the most of small spaces. Start anywhere — the garden will meet you.
This pitcher plant is a native of Ceylon. The pitchers are partly filled with water before they open; hence it was supposed to be produced by some distilling process. In Ceylon the old, tough, flexibl...
This sapindaceous tree produces one of the valued indigenous fruits of China. There are several varieties; the fruit is round, about an inch and a half in diameter, with a reddish-colored, thin, britt...
This is a well-known plant, often seen in cultivation, and seemingly a favorite with many. It belongs to a poisonous family and is a dangerous poison. A decoction of its leaves forms a wash, employed...
The Tasmanian iron wood tree. It is of medium growth and furnishes wood that is extremely hard and dense, and used for making sheaves for ships' blocks, and for other articles that require to be of gr...
A tree that grows about 40 feet high, along the seashores in the West Indies and Central America, and known as the cork wood. The wood is soft, spongy, and exceedingly light, and is used as a substitu...
The European olive, which is popularly supposed to furnish _all_ the olive oil of commerce. It is a plant of slow growth and of as slow decay. It is considered probable that trees at present existing...
The snake nut tree of Guiana, so called on account of the curious form of the embryo of the seed, which is spirally twisted, so as to closely resemble a coiled-up blacksnake. The fruits are as large a...
A plant belonging to the cinchona family, the roots of which are reputed to cure snake bites. They are intensely bitter, and from this circumstance they are called earth-galls by the Malays.
A native of the East Indies, where the roots are used in medicine as a febrifuge and alexipharmic.
A native of Mexico, where it is largely cultivated in what are called the Nopal plantations for the breeding of the cochineal insect. This plant and others are also grown for a similar purpose in the...
This plant is a native of Mexico and South America generally. It reaches a height of 15 to 20 feet and bears reddish-colored flowers, followed by pear-shaped fleshy fruits 2 or 3 inches long, and of a...
The mountain laurel, or spice bush, of California. When bruised it emits a strong, spicy odor, and the Spanish Americans use the leaves as a condiment.