Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1884-11-20

berries J Tendrils and discs on their
ends serve as climbers The far famed
Pitcher plant from Java shows the
finest modification of leaf. The
plant is pale and about feet high and
needs almost blood heat to live. The
leaf juts out from its stem with an
ordinary stalk or peliole. The leaf
after growing some 6 inches sends out
a 5 inch tendril which turns on itself
and makes loop. On the end of
this tendril is deep, perfect pitcher,
which will hold one or two gills of
water. On the top of the pitcher is
an exact fitting lid. The lid seems to
open when it is wet and rainy and
allows water (and many insects) to go
in and when it is dry and hot the lid
contracts down. This pitcher serves
to hold water in dry times like the
extra folds in camels stomach. Like
the Venus fly trap it has perceptible
stomach to bridge it over perilous
times of drouth and famine. But
leaves in this garden show a still
greater utility. They serve as lungs
as we'll as stomach and breathe as well
eat A leaf breathes carbonic acid
gas which is poisonous to animal life
The design here again is beautiful and
exact. The rankness of tropical veg
citation to northerner is almost
incredibly enormous. That of South
America, West Indies, and South
Africa is tremendous in size for single
years growth. One palm leaf will
measure feet broad and 5 long with
a stalk or petiole s feet long and every
palm has many of those leaves. Now
these die every year and along with
other decomposition and animal exhal-
alton and burning of coal much
carbonic acid gas is made and this
broad-leafed vegetation soon breathes
it all and purifes the air for animals,
and so the utility of design could be
followed without limitation.
One of the attractive features of the
garden is the Palm House. It is 169
feet long, 81 broad and nearly 40 feet
high, made entirely of glass and iron.
Here grow all the rare palms of the
world. 1t is kept about 900 hot day
and night, for these palms are all from
hot tropics. This house verify is a
place of rank growth and smell. Here
is a large palm from Brazil called
Cocos Refeua. 1t grows for more
than rs feet with a very smoothe,
annular riugged bark and without the
trace of limb. At the top the leaves
turn or reflex downward 1t has now
reached the roof of the glass house
about 40 feet high.
The Sabal Palm from Cuba and
Hayti has all its branches or rather
petioles of the leaves starts from near
the ground. This petiole is about s
feet long and bears leaf on it's end
5 feet long and 7 feet broad. The
border of the leaf is sharply serrated
sometimes 20 inches deep. Several
palms from Molluca and other hot,
damp climates have the branches run.
ming down in the ground as roots like
the Banyan tree of China These are
called aerial roots. These roots are
abundantly seen in growing cone.
Some Of the palms simply have an
annual growth of 1O-15 enormously
large leaves on its top. These die
down to the base of the leaf every
year but the thick base sticks to the
trunk Of the palm giving the tree a
thick rough appearance. Though the
foot of the tree is smoothe for many
feet up. These old leaves will make
the trunk of a palm which is in wood
one foot thick, 2 IL feet thick.
Beautiful Bamboo trees are growing
here from Java. They are 8 inches
thick at the bottom and grow 80 feet
as smoothe as glass without trace of
limb The nodes are about 2 feet
apart The Ceres Hexogon, a six
sided plant from South America grows
80 feet high It has no leaves but
grows and branches like cactus. 1t
is only about inches thick and there
fore must be supported. It's top
branches twist like ropes, One Of the
most curious specimens is from the
banks of the Amazon river. It is a
water Nympha and is called Victora
Regia. It is kept in seperate glass
house with many other water plants at
the same temperature as the Amazon
river whose heat is better understood
after remaining in this dollhouse half
an hour. 1t has a dozen or more
leaves which grow from central point.
It is entirely in water. The petiole
or stalk of the leaf is from 10 to Is
feet long and an inch thick and grows
in the center Of an almost perfectly
circular leaf, similar to a May apple.
These giant circular leaves are nearly
6 feet in diameter and turned up at
the edge l to 2 inches forming YES
sci lust like a irving pan. Thus ii