Independent gardening advice for real gardens, balconies and windowsills.
A growing reference library of gardening terms, techniques and climate concepts explained in plain language.
A plant of the family _Piperaceae_, having an aromatic fruit like a berry, with a thick rind. The roots are used medicinally in Brazil.
This leguminous plant has remarkable pods, which often measure 6 or 8 feet in length. The seeds are about 2 inches across, and half an inch thick, and have a hard, woody, and beautifully polished shel...
The silk-cotton, or God tree of the West Indies. The fruit is a capsule, filled with a beautiful silky fiber, which is very elastic, but can not be woven, and is only used for stuffing cushions.
The Kaffir tree of South Africa. The wood is soft and so light as to be used for floating fishing nets. The scarlet seeds are employed for making necklaces. The Erythrinas, of which there are many spe...
This is a favorite tree for growing in masses, for the purpose of sheltering cocoanut plantations, and inducing a proper degree of moisture in their neighborhood.
The leaves of this plant, under the name of coca, are much used by the inhabitants of South America as a masticatory. It forms an article of commerce among the Indians, who carefully dry the leaves an...
The peppermint tree, a native of Tasmania. It produces a thin, transparent oil possessed of a pungent odor resembling oil of lemons, and tasting like camphor, which has great solvent properties. The g...
This stringy bark gum furnishes a strong, durable timber, used for shipbuilding and other purposes. _E. robusta_ contains large cavities in its stem, between the annual concentric circles of wood, fil...
The blue gum, a rapid-growing tree, attaining to a large size. Recently it has attracted attention and gained some repute in medicine as an antiperiodic. The leaves have also been applied to wounds wi...