Title: Arboretum et fruticetum britannicum, or : The trees and shrubs of Britain, native and foreign, hardy and half-hardy, pictorially and botanically delineated, and scientifically and popularly described ...
Identifier: arboretumetfrut04loud (find matches)
Year: 1844 (1840s)
Authors: Loudon, J. C. (John Claudius), 1783-1843
Subjects: Trees; Shrubs; Botany; Botany
Publisher: London : J. C. Loudon
Contributing Library: California Academy of Sciences
Digitizing Sponsor: California Academy of Sciences

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CHAP. CXVJI. HALF-HARDY MONOCO 1YLEDO HEM 2529 middle of August; and, for about six weeks, it made the rapid growth of about 4 in. every 24 hours. After this, its growth gradually became slower, till, on the I lth of No- vember, the spike was 14 ft. high, as shown in the figure, and bearing 840 flowers in various stages of progress. The flowers were green without, and of a greenish yellow within. A spe- cimen in the conservatory of the geo- graphical establishment of Van der Maelen at Brussels flowered in De- cember, 1837. The height of the flower-stem was 30 ft., and it was furnished with from 1200 to 1500 flowers. The same plant had flowered some years previously, so that this second flower-stem in all probability proceeded from a sucker. (ISE'cho du Monde Savant, Dec. 29., 1837.) The plant has ripened seeds freely in the conservatory of M. Soulange- Bodin, with whom it flowered in 1825, and who had, in the following year, 1000 plants raised from its seeds. Agave americdna, the American Aloe, a native of the tropical part of South America, on mountains 900 ft. above the level of the sea. " Thence," says Sir W. J. Hooker, " it has been introduced into the warmer parts of the old world, where fences are made of it, and a fermented liquor called pulque; and fibres for thread, and a substance analogous to soap, have also been extracted. It was, by the late Mr. Yates, planted in his garden at Saltcombe Bay, in Devonshire, in 1804, when only 3 years old, and but 6 in. high. It was placed in the open air, without any protection, save what was afforded by the neighbour- ing hills. In the year 1820, it had attained a height of 11 ft., and covered a space of ground the diameter of which was 16 ft., when it threw up a flower-stem, which grew for 6 weeks at the rate of 3 in. a day, and in September measured 27 ft. in height, its branches being loaded with 16,000 blossoms; thus contradicting the generally received opinion, that the American aloe flowers only once in 100 years." (M'Culloch's Statis- tics of the British Empire, i. p. 126. J Phormium thiax, the New Zea- land Flax, is also quite hardy both in the south of England and Ireland, and is technically a shrub. 8 a 2
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