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 yields an eatable fruit called hog plum in the West Indies. The taste is said to be peculiar, and not very agreeable to strangers. It is chiefly used to fatten swine. The fruit is laxative, the l...
A plant of the Musa or banana family. The flowers are very beautiful for the genus. It is a native of the Cape of Good Hope. The seeds are gathered and eaten by the Kaffirs.
This is a native of the Coromandel coast and Cochin-China. It bears an orange-like fruit, containing seeds that have an intensely bitter taste, owing to the presence of two most energetic poisons, _st...
This South American plant furnishes the timber known in commerce as mahogany. The bark is considered a febrifuge, and the seeds prepared with oil were used by the ancient Aztecs as a cosmetic. The tim...
This is sometimes called South Sea arrowroot. The tubers contain a great amount of starch, which is obtained by rasping them and macerating four or five days in water, when the fecula separates in the...
The tamarind tree. There are two varieties of this species. The East Indian variety has long pods, with six to twelve seeds. The variety cultivated in the West Indies has shorter pods, containing one...
This plant is a native of Madagascar, and of the family _Apocynaceae_. Formerly, when the custom of trial by ordeal was more prevalent than now, the seeds of this plant were in great repute, and unlim...
The bark of this plant possesses aromatic qualities, closely resembling Winter's bark. The small black fruits are used as a substitute for pepper.
The teak tree. Teak wood has been extensively employed for shipbuilding in the construction of merchant vessels and ships of war; its great strength and durability, the facility with which it can be w...
The astringent fruits of this tropical plant are employed for tanning and dyeing, and are sometimes met with in commerce under the name of myrobalans, and used by calico printers for the production of...
This plant is widely dispersed over tropical Asia and the islands of the Eastern Archipelago. Its leaves and young branches abound in a viscid juice, and in Cochin-China the natives bruise and macerat...
This is the China tea plant, whose native country is undetermined. All kinds and grades of the teas of commerce are made from this species, although probably it has some varieties. Black and green tea...