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 furnishes the Trincomalee wood of the Philippine Islands and Ceylon, and is largely used for making oil casks and for building boats, for which it is well adapted, being light and strong.
This furnishes the well known Brazil nuts, or cream nuts of commerce. The tree is a native of South America and attains a height of 100 to 150 feet. The fruit is nearly round and contains from eightee...
A native of Mexico, where it is sometimes called Mariposa butterfly. The branches are said to be used in the adulteration of sarsaparilla. _B. chica_, a native of Venezuela, furnishes a red pigment, o...
Arnotta plant. This plant is a native of South America, but has been introduced and cultivated both in the West and East Indies. It bears bunches of pink-colored flowers, which are followed by oblong...
The akee fruit of Guinea. The fruit is about 3 inches long by 2 inches wide; the seeds are surrounded by a spongy substance, which is eaten. It has a subacid, agreeable taste. A small quantity of semi...
A Chilian plant which yields small edible fruits; these, as well as all parts of the plant, are very aromatic. The bark is used for tanning, and the wood is highly esteemed for making charcoal. An alk...
The Palmyra palm. The parts of this tree are applied to such a multitude of purposes that a poem in the Tamil language, although enumerating eight hundred uses, does not exhaust the catalogue. In old...
This Coromandel tree furnishes the resin known as olibanum, which is supposed to have been the frankincense of the ancients. It is sometimes used in medicine as an astringent and stimulant, and is emp...
The Corawa fiber, or silk-grass of Guiana, is obtained from this plant, which is very strong, and much used for bowstrings, fishing lines, nets, and ropes.
This is very common as a hedge or fence plant in the West Indies. The leaves, when beaten with a blunt mallet and macerated in water, produce fibers from which beautiful fabrics are manufactured. The...
The bread-nut tree of Jamaica. The nuts or seeds produced by this tree are said to form an agreeable and nutritious article of food. When cooked they taste like hazelnuts. The young branches and shoot...
The cow tree of South America, which yields a milk of as good quality as that from the cow. It forms large forests on the mountains near the town of Cariaco and elsewhere along the seacoast of Venezue...