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 very beautiful palm from the Mauritius. The fruit contains a small quantity of pulp, which is eaten by the natives, but is not considered very palatable by travelers.
This is the celebrated henna of the East. The use of the powdered leaves as a cosmetic is very general in Asia and northern Africa, the practice having descended from very remote ages, as is proved by...
This tree produces the hard urn-shaped fruits known in Brazil as monkey cups. The seeds are eatable and sold as Sapucaia nuts. The fruit vessels are very peculiar, being 6 inches in diameter and havin...
A plant known throughout Australia as Captain Cook's tea tree, from the circumstance that, on the first landing of this navigator in that country, he employed a decoction of the leaves of this plant a...
This palm is a native of the island of Pulo-Penango, and yields canes known by the curious name of Penang Lawyers. It is a low-growing plant, its stems averaging an inch in diameter. The stems are con...
An East India shrub which produces round fruits about the size of damson plums, of a yellowish color, with reddish or purplish tints. They are extremely acid, and the pulp is employed in Java as a sub...
This is one of the few palms found in Australia. The unexpanded leaves, prepared by being scalded and dried in the shade, are used for making hats, while the still younger and more tender leaves are e...
This sapotaceous plant is cultivated for its fruit, which is called marmalade, on account of its containing a thick agreeably flavored pulp, bearing some resemblance in appearance and taste to quince...
The ebony wood of Queensland. The heart wood is black, and the outside wood of a bright red color. It is close-grained, hard, heavy, elastic and tough, and takes a high polish.
An Australian tree which produces an edible nut called the Queensland nut. This fruit is about the size of a walnut, and within a thick pericarp, a smooth brown-colored nut, inclosing a kernel of a ri...
A South American tree which furnishes a portion of the rosewood of commerce. Various species of the genus, under the common Brazilian name of Jaccaranda, are said to yield this wood, but there is some...
The fustic tree. Large quantities of the bright yellow wood of this tree are exported from South America for the use of dyers, who obtain from it shades of yellow, brown, olive, and green. A concentra...