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.
A plant of the order of _Bignoniaceae_, called Atunyangua in the Andes of Peru, where the inhabitants dye their cotton clothes by boiling them along with the leaves of this plant; the dye is a permane...
A native of Malabar, where a kind of sago is prepared from the seeds, which are dried and powdered; medicinal properties are also attributed to the seeds.
The sago palm of gardens. The stem of the plants abounds in starch, which is highly esteemed in Japan. A gum exudes from the trunk of the old plant, which is employed medicinally by the natives of Ind...
Called Huon pine, because of its being found near the Huon River, in Tasmania. It belongs to the yew family. It furnishes valuable timber, very durable, and is used for ship and house building; some o...
A tree of northern India, the timber of which is known as Sissum wood. This wood is strong, tenacious, and compact, much used for railway ties and for gun-carriages.
A singular plant of the _Coniferae_ family, called the Kauri pine. It forms a tree 150 to 200 feet in height, and produces a hard, brittle resin-like copal, which is used in varnish.
A plant of the pineapple family, from Mexico. The leaves contain a fine fiber, which may be ultimately more extensively utilized than it is at present.
An interesting plant of the pea family, called the moving plant, on account of the rotatory motion of the leaflets. These move in all conceivable ways, either steadily or by jerks. Sometimes only one...
The velvet tamarind, so called, from the circumstance that its seed-pods are covered with a beautiful black velvet down. The seeds are surrounded by a farinaceous pulp of an agreeable acid taste.
The tamarind plum, which has a delicious pulp of slightly acid flavor.
The large fern tree of Australia. This plant attains the height of 30 or more feet, and its fronds or leaves spread horizontally some 20 to 25 feet. It is found in snowy regions, and would be perfectl...
This has acquired the name of dumb cane, in consequence of its fleshy, cane-like stems, rendering speechless any person who may happen to bite them, their acrid poison causing the tongue to swell to a...