The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1916-06-16

rabbis of Washington. This plant is
used by them in the synagogues dur
ing the Succoth. If plant can be
found with three leaves, something
like the three-leaf clover, they cheer.
fully pay as much as five dollars for
it. 1t is said at the garden that a
grower in the West has found way
to produce the three-leaf variety and
that he is advertising it for sale and
doing good business.
Some Rare Foreign Plants.
\ walk through the conserVatories
shows this and many other foreign
plants. One sees the greater palms
pushing their way through the glass
window roofs, at times, and the low
height of these roofs is the cause of
great trouble to the caretakers and
attendants.
Here is a Washington filafera, gi-
gantic California palm, the largest in
the conservatory. Here is a wampee
tree, from China, which attracts the
Chinese Of the Pennsylvania avenue
colony. and which produces an edi-
BILE fruit. used for preserving and also
for a medicine. Here is a marimosa
alba, the sensitive plant, so-called,
from South America. One variety
closes and shrivels, if touched, an
other closes at night, as bird closes
its wings and settles down, as if to
sleep. Elsewhere is the gamboge,
which produces the best sort OF oil
for artists, which is also edible and
, which also produces a medicine. In
another place is the Arabian coffee
plant. in still another the Indian
breadfruit, which looks something like
! a grapefruit. Nearby, is a travellers
tree" from Madagascar, which the ma
tives tap and from which they obtain
water in the desert. There are in
cense trees from India, Japanese
plums, gorgeous, scarlet hybiscus, al
ligator pears, and there are, also,
bananas. the fruit of the latter grow
ing in Washington, if you please.
The conservatory is rich in the fig
family, many specimens being gath
! cred here, some of which produce rub
ber and some fruit The fig of COM
merce belongs to the rubber family
! Then there is the inga (not Inca, of
course) of Peru, the most beautiful
oak holly from southern Europe, wild
date palms which fruit in winter, rat
tan palms, maiacca palms. sago and
tapioca.
Nearby are also to be found the
nephelium longanum, so familiarly
known to our childhood as the lychee
or lechee nut-the Chinese Christmas
late plant, which has fruit like the
lima bean.
There are also betels, nuts which
the East Indian troops now in France
| fighting for England are reported to
have been furnished by the British
TOO large a dose of which is said to
produce a stupor. There is hemp,
from which rope is made. and there
is the Olivia, beautiful lily from the
Cape of Good Hope, named for Lord
| Give. famous as one Of the earlier
viceroys of India.
Outside the Conservatory.
Outside of the conservatory there
are hundreds OF interesting plants and
trees. One of,these is an acacia plant
ed by General Grant. Another is the
Hottentot poison tree. 1t has a for
midable name-no less than toXico-
phlaca spectabilis, or acocanthera.
This is the so-called ordeal tree of
Madagascar of which suspected as
well as guilty persons in times gone
by have been compelled to eat. The
ordeal" to test whether suspicion
was justly founded, always so proved,
according to the belief of the Hotten-
tots, for the suspected person who was
Obliged to eat of it always died. At
the botanic gardens it is said to be the
most poisonous of plants. 1t is said
that a seed no longer than an almond
suffices to kill twenty persons.