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 plant is found all over the East Indies, where its leaf is largely used by Indian natives as a masticatory. Its consumption is immense, and has been said to equal that of tobacco by Western peopl...
This plant is found in many warm countries, such as in southern Florida. It is called cahinca in Brazil, where a preparation of the bark of the root is employed as a remedy for snake bites. Almost eve...
The roots of this plant are an aromatic stimulant, much used as medicine in the Island of Java; also, when mixed with anise, it has proved valuable in malignant smallpox.
The satinwood tree of tropical countries. It is principally used for making the backs of clothes and hair brushes, and for articles of turnery-ware; the finest mottled pieces are cut into veneers and...
The cocoa plum of the West Indies. The fruits are about the size of a plum, and are of various colors, white, yellow, red, or purple. The pulp is sweet, a little austere, but not disagreeable. The fru...
The fruit of this plant is known in the West Indies as the star apple, the interior of which, when cut across, shows ten cells, and as many seeds disposed regularly round the center, giving a star-lik...
This Indian plant is cultivated in many parts under the name of Otaheite gooseberry. The fruits resemble those of a green gooseberry. They have an acid flavor; are used for preserving or pickling, and...
The yellow bark of Bolivia. This is one of the so-called Peruvian Bark trees. The discovery of the medicinal value of this bark is a matter of fable and conjecture. The name cinchona is derived from t...
This furnishes cassia bark, which is much like cinnamon, but thicker, coarser, stronger, less delicate in flavor, and cheaper; hence it is often used to adulterate cinnamon. The unexpanded flower buds...
A tree belonging to _Lauraceae_, which furnishes the best cinnamon. It is prepared by stripping the bark from the branches, when it rolls up into quills, the smaller of which are introduced into the l...
The velvet plant of tropical countries. The root furnishes the _Pareira brava_ of druggists, which is used in medicine.
The orange, generally supposed to be a native of the north of India. It was introduced into Arabia during the ninth century. It was unknown in Europe in the eleventh century. Oranges were cultivated a...