Home / Albums / Natural History / Plants 70
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The Coffee Tree
For the Satisfaction of the Curious, have prefix’d a Figure of the Tree, Flower, and Fruit, which I delineated from a growing Tree in the Amsterdam Gardens.
56 visits
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Image 9191
82 visits
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Image 9186
101 visits
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Image 9185
83 visits
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Olive Branch
65 visits
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Image 9178
83 visits
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Study of Horned Poppy
98 visits
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Image 9173
99 visits
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Poppyheads
89 visits
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The formality of the true geometrical garden is charming to many to whom this style is offensive; and there is not the slightest reason why the most beautiful combinations of fine-leaved and fine-flowered plants should not be made in any kind of geometrical garden.
252 visits
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The Gourd tribe is capable, if properly used, of adding much remarkable beauty and character to the garden; yet, as a rule, it is seldom used. There is no natural order more wonderful in the variety and singular shapes of its fruit than that to which the melon, cucumber, and vegetable marrow belong. From the writhing Snake-cucumber, which hangs down four or five feet long from its stem, to the round enormous giant pumpkin or gourd, the grotesque variation, both in colour and shape and size, is marvellous.
197 visits
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Ornamental foliaged herbaceous Section; retaining its leaves till very late in the year.
The leaves of this are bold and noble in outline, and the plant has a tendency, rare in some hardy things with otherwise fine qualities, to retain them till the end of the season without losing a particle of their freshness and polished verdure. In fact, the only thing we have to decide about this subject is, what is the best place for it? Now, it is one of those things that will not disgrace any position, and will prove equally at home in the centre of the mixed border, projected in the grass a little from the edge of a choice shrubbery, or in the flower-garden; nobody need fear its displaying anything like the seediness which such things as the Heracleums show at the end of summer.
264 visits
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Shady and sheltered Dell, with Tree Ferns and other Stove Plants placed out for the summer.
235 visits
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Image 6926
115 visits
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Growing in poor peaty soil, and sometimes along the borders of ponds where nothing else can grow, certain low herbaceous plants, called Droseras, abound. So small and apparently insignificant are they, that to the ordinary observer they are almost unnoticed. But they have peculiarities of structure and nature that readily distinguish them. Scattered thickly over their leaves are reddish bristles or tentacles, each surmounted by a gland, from which an extremely viscid fluid, sparkling in the sunlight like dew, exudes in transparent drops. Hence the common name of Sundew by which the half-dozen species found in the United States east of the Mississippi River are known. A one-sided raceme, whose flowers open only when the sun shines, crowns a smooth scape, which is devoid of tentacles. Drosera rotundifolia, our commonest species, has a wide range, being indigenous to both Europe and America. In the United States it extends from New England to Florida and westward, and is occasionally associated with Drosera longifolia, a form with long strap-shaped leaves, but whose distribution is mostly restricted to maritime regions, from Massachusetts to Florida.
170 visits
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No better example of carnivorous plants could be taken than Dionæa muscipula, or to use the common name, Venus’s Fly-trap. It is a species that is indigenous to North Carolina and the adjacent parts of South Carolina, affecting sandy bogs in the pine forests from April to June, and a representative of the Droscraceæ, or Sundew Family. One cannot fail after once seeing it of becoming impressed with its peculiar characteristics. It is a smooth perennial herb with tufted radical leaves on broadly-winged, spatulate stems, the limb orbicular, notched at both ends, and fringed on the margins with strong bristles. From the centre of the rosette of leaves proceeds at the proper time a scape or leafless stalk which terminates in an umbel-like cyme of from eight to ten white bracted flowers, each flower being one inch in diameter. The roots are small and consist of two branches each an inch in length springing from a bulbous enlargement. Like an epiphytic orchid, these plants can be grown in well-drained damp moss without any soil, thus showing that the roots probably serve for the absorption of water solely. Three minute pointed processes or filaments, placed triangularly, project from the upper surface of each lobe of the bi-lobed leaf, although cases are observed where four and even ten filaments are found. These filaments are remarkable for their extreme sensitiveness to touch, as shown not only by their own movement, but by that of the lobes also. Sharp, rigid projections, diminutive spikes as it were, stand out from the leaf-margins, each of which being entered by a bundle of spiral vessels. They are so arranged that when the lobes close they interlock like the teeth of an old-fashioned rat-trap. That considerable strength may be had, the mid-rib of the leaf, on the lower side, is quite largely developed.
168 visits
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Mother-Aphis and Her Army of Children on Tube
Whilst engaged some few years ago in the study of the species that affects the blossoms of one of our gourds—the Cucurbita ovifera of botanists—certain phenomena were observed, which promised an easy and speedy solution of the problem.
Gathered in compact masses, like companies of soldiery preparing for a foray, hundreds of aphides were seen, busily feeding, all over the flowers. There were old and young, not an indiscriminate mingling of ages and sizes, but an orderly arrangement of families, each family preceded by its own appropriate head. First came the very young of each family, only to be followed by those that were older, leaving the oldest of all to lead up the rear.
255 visits
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Witsenia maura
406 visits
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Tulbaghia violacea
362 visits
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Streptocarpus Dunnii
291 visits
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Stapelia Gettleffii
364 visits
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Senecio stapeliaeformis
343 visits
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Sarcocaulon rigidum
283 visits
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Richardia Rehmanni
318 visits
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Richardia angustiloba
300 visits
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Protea abyssinica
327 visits
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Pachypodium succulentum
387 visits
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Orothamnus Zeyheri
329 visits
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Nymphaea stellata
290 visits
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Moraea iridioides
360 visits
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Mimetes palustris
284 visits
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Leucadendron Stokoei
348 visits
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Leucadendron Stokoei
325 visits
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Haemanthus natalensis
249 visits
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Gladiolus Rehmanni
323 visits
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Gladiolus psittacinus
240 visits
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Gerbera Jamesoni
306 visits
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Gardenia globosa
267 visits
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Freesia refracta
286 visits
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Cyrtanthus sanguineus
286 visits
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Cyrtanthus rotundilobus
287 visits
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Cyrtanthus obliquus
265 visits
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Cyrtanthus McKenii
296 visits
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Image 6367
332 visits
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Cyrtanthus Angustifolius
304 visits
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Clivia miniata
267 visits
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Clerodendron triphyllum
292 visits
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Ceropegia Rendallii
309 visits
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Ceropegia Meyeri
307 visits
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Bolusanthus speciosus
348 visits
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Arctotis Decurrens
301 visits
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Aloe Globuligemma
375 visits
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Aloe pretoriensis
263 visits
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Aloe Pienaarii
299 visits
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Agapanthus Umbellatus
258 visits
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Adenium multiflorum
253 visits
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Acokanthera spectabilis
346 visits
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This is one of five species of Himalayan plants which, until recently, were included in the genus vaccinium. The new name for them is ugly enough to make one wish that they were vacciniums still. Pentapterygium serpens is the most beautiful of the lot, and, so far as I know, this and P. rugosum are the only species in cultivation in England. The former was collected in the Himalayas about ten years ago by Captain Elwes, who forwarded it to Kew, where it grows and flowers freely under the same treatment as suits Cape heaths.
301 visits
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In the wet season they push out new shoots, from which grow rapidly wands three or four feet long, clothed with box-like leaves, and afterward with numerous pendulous flowers. These are elegant in shape and richly colored. They are urn-shaped, with five ribs running the whole length of the corolla, and their color is bright crimson with deeper colored V-shaped veins, as shown in the illustration of the flowers of almost natural size. They remain fresh upon the plant for several weeks. The beautiful appearance of a well grown specimen when in flower may be seen from the accompanying sketch of the specimen at Kew, which was at its best in July, and remained in bloom until the middle of September.
234 visits
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Boyle your Quinces that you intend to keep, whole and unpared, in faire water, till they be soft, but not too violently for feare you break them, when they are soft take them out, and boyle some Quinces pared, quarter'd, and coar'd, and the parings of the Quinces with them in the same liquor, to make it strong, and when they have boyled a good time, enough to make the liquor of sufficient strength, take out the quartered Quinces and parings, and put the liquor into a pot big enough to receive all the Quinces, both whole and quartered, and put them into it, when the liquor is thorow cold, and so keep them for your use close covered.
953 visits
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Take Damask Roses, clip off the white of them, and take six ounces of them to every pint of faire water, first well boyled and scummed, let them stand so as abovesaid, twelve hours, as you doe in the Syrupe of Violets, wringing out the Roses and putting in new eight times, then wringing out the last put in onely the juice of four ounces of Roses, so make it up as before, if you will put in Rubarb, take to every two drams, slice it, string it on a thred, hang it within the pot after the first shifting, and let it infuse within your Roses: Some use to boyle the Rubarb in the Syrupe, but it is dangerous, the Syrupe purgeth Choller and Melancholly.
611 visits
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A Tart of Straw-Berries.
Pick and wash your Straw-Berries clean, and put them in the past one by another, as thick as you can, then take Sugar, Cinamon, and a little Ginger finely beaten, and well mingled together, cast them upon the Straw Berries, and cover them with the lid finely cut into Lozenges, and so let them bake a quarter of an houre, then take it out, stewing it with a little Cinamon, and Sugar, and so serve it.
790 visits
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The use of Oyle of Violets.
Oyle of Violets, Cammomile, Lillies, Elder flowers, Cowslips, Rue, Wormwood, and Mint, are made after the same sort; Oyle of Violets, if it be rubbed about the Tempels of the head, doth remove the extream heat, asswageth the head Ache, provoketh sleep, and moistneth the braine; it is good against melancholly, dullnesse, and heavinesse of the spirits, and against swellings, and soares that be over-hot.
630 visits
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To dry Apricocks.
Take them when they be ripe, stone them, and pare off their rindes very thin, then take halfe as much Sugar as they weigh, finely beaten, and lay them with that Sugar into a silver or earthen dish, laying first a lay of Sugar, and then of Fruit, and let them stand so all night, and in the morning the Sugar will be all melted, then put them into a Skillet, and boyle them apace, scumming them well, and as soon as they grow tender take them off from the fire, and let them stand two dayes in the Syrupe, then take them out, and lay them on a fine plate, and so dry them in a Stove.
675 visits
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Take Beanes, the rinde or the upper skin being pul'd off, bruise them, and mingle them with the white of an Egg, and make it stick to the temples, it keepeth back humours flowing to the Eyes.
To dissolve the Stone; which is one of the Physitians greatest secrets.
Take a peck of green Beane cods, well cleaved, and without dew or rain, and two good handfulls of Saxifrage, lay the same into a Still, one row of Bean cods, another of Saxifrage, and so Distill another quart of water after this manner, and then Distill another proportion of Bean codds alone, and use to drink oft these two Waters; if the Patient be most troubled with heat of the Reins, then it is good to use the Bean codd water stilled alone more often, and the other upon comming downe of the sharp gravell or stone.
817 visits
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To make a close Tart of Cherries.
Take out the stones, and lay them as whole as you can in a Charger, and put Mustard, Cinamon, and Sugar, into them, and lay them into a Tart whole, and close them, then let them stand three quarters of an hour in the Oven, and then make a Syrupe of Muskadine, and Damask water and sugar, and so serve it.
693 visits
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Recipe from the 1653 book (with original spelling)
Take Lemmons, rub them upon a Grate, to make their rinds smooth, cut them in halves, take out the meat of them, and boyle them in faire water a good while, changing the water once or twice in the boyling, to take away the bitternesse of them, when they are tender take them out and scrape away all the meat (if any be left) very cleane, then cut them as thin as you can (to make them hold) in a long string, or in reasonable short pieces, and lay them in your glasse, and boyling some of the best White-wine vineger with shugar, to a reasonable thin Syrupe, powre it upon them into your glasse, and keep them for your use.
885 visits
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Oyle of Cowslips.
Oyle of Cowslips, if the Nape of the Neck be annointed with it, is good for the Palsie, it comforteth the sinews, the heart and the head.
830 visits
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To make a Tart of Medlers.
Take Medlers that be rotten, and stamp them, and set them upon a chafin dish with coales, and beat in two yolks of Eggs, boyling till it be somewhat thick, then season it with Sugar, Cinamon, and Ginger, and lay it in paste.
695 visits
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Olives
652 visits
