Independent gardening advice for real gardens, balconies and windowsills.
A growing reference library of gardening terms, techniques and climate concepts explained in plain language.
This Euphorbiaceous plant is the tallow tree of China. The fruits, are about half an inch in diameter, and each contains three seeds, thickly coated with a fatty substance which yields the tallow. Thi...
This plant furnishes the true jalap-tubers of commerce. They owe their well-known purgative properties to their resinous ingredients. Various species of Ipom[oe]a furnish a spurious kind of this drug,...
This West Indian plant has become naturalized in southern Florida. It belongs to the cinchona family and is known as Jamaica bark. It is also known as Quinquina Caraibe. The bark is reputed to be a go...
The wood apple or elephant apple tree of India, belonging to the family _Aurantiaceae_. It forms a large tree in Ceylon, and yields a hard, heavy wood, of great strength. It yields a gum, which is mix...
The sequa or cacoon antidote of Jamaica. It belongs to the cucumber family, and climbs to a great height up the trunks of trees. The seeds are employed as a remedy in a variety of diseases, and are co...
This plant is known as the india-rubber tree. It is a native of the East Indies, and is the chief source of caoutchouc from that quarter of the globe, although other species of Ficus yield this gum, a...
The famous banyan tree of history. Specimens of this Indian fig are mentioned as being of immense size. One in Bengal spreads over a diameter of 370 feet. Another covered an area of 1,700 square yards...
The pippul tree of the Hindoos, which they hold in such veneration that, if a person cuts or lops off any of the branches, he is looked upon with as great abhorrence as if he had broken the leg of one...
A bushy shrub, used in India for hedges. Its fruit has a pleasant, subacid flavor when perfectly ripe, but the unripe fruit is extremely astringent. The Indian doctors use a liniment made of the bark...