Page:Descriptive and illustrated catalogue and manual of Royal Palm Nurseries (IA descriptiveillus1894roya).pdf/10

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Fruiting Pineapples and Bananas at Royal Palm Nurseries. (See pages 5, and 8.)

A. Species from Brazil. “The Berira, a quick-growing tree, with large fruit, the inside of which tastes very much like the filling of cream cakes.”—E. S. Rand. $1 each.

ARTOCARPUS integrifolia. The Jack Fruit of India. Largely used for food, and the wood for cabinet work. Full-grown fruit weighs from 30 to 60 pounds. $1.50 each.

CARICA papaya. The Papaw or Melon Papaw. (Spanish, Papaya.) The leaves are large, seven-lobed and terminal, after the manner of palms. Diœcious. The plant grows very fast, and is strikingly odd and ornamental. Very tender, but ordinarily survives the South Florida winter. Specimens here in Manatee have attained an age of seven or eight years. Delights in a very high and dry situation, even a shell mound. The green fruit is said to be sometimes used as we use the turnip. The buds are used for sweetmeats, and the ripe fruit is sliced and eaten like a muskmelon, which it resembles in size, color and taste. But it will be most highly prized in Florida for its peculiar property of making tough beef tender! This is uniformly practiced in the tropics. The slice of meat may be placed between bruised leaves of the Papaw for half an hour, or even less; or rubbed with the rind of the fruit. 20 cts. each, $2 per dozen.

CARISSA Arduina (Arduina grandifolia). Natal. The shrub is an evergreen with thick, bright green camellia-like foliage; is very thorny and of slow growth; bears a profusion of large, fragrant white flowers and delicious fruits, red and the size of a cherry. In Natal, where the fruit is used to make an excellent preserve, the plant is called Amatungulu. (Though this little plant will bear several degrees of frost, it is perhaps more suitably classed as “tropical,” than as semi-tropical.) 75 cents each, $7.50 per dozen.

C. acuminata. Natal. $1.50.

CALODENDRON Capense. Cape Chestnut. South Africa. One of the handsomest trees of the Cape of Good Hope. Deciduous; beautiful flesh-colored flowers, produced in terminal panicles. The black seeds resembles New England chestnuts exceedingly, and are very odd and ornamental. A fine tropical shade-tree. 50 cents each.

CHRYSOPHYLLUM cainito. The Star-Apple. (Spanish, Caimilo.) “And what is next, like an evergreen peach, shedding from the under side of every leaf a golden light—call it not shade? A Star-Apple.”—Kingsley. This tree finally attains a height of twenty feet, bearing large quantities of round, purple (sometimes greenish) fruits, the size of a small apple, ripening in April and May. The fruit cut into halves transversely, discloses a purple pulp with whitish star-shaped “core,” and from four to ten seeds. A first-class fruit, and in demand. 35 cts. each, $3.50 per dozen.

CEREUS triangularis. {{sc|Strawberry Pear.} (Also, for other fruit-bearing Cerei, see Cacti.)

COCOS nucifera. The Cocoanut Palm. (Also, for other species of Cocos, see Palms and Cycads.)

CICCA disticha (C. racemosa, Phyllanthus distichus). Otaheite Gooseberry. A rare, beautiful tree, bearing large quantities of waxy-white berries resembling the Surinam cherry in shape and size, growing in clusters like a currant, and with a sharp acid taste. Ripening in midsummer, when fruit is scarce, they are very useful for pies, preserves, etc. Deserving of extensive cultivation simply as an ornamental tree; we know of no more beautiful sight than one of these trees loaded with the fruit; the graceful pinnate leaves, a foot or more in length, with a faint twinge of wine-color on the new growth, the long racemes of waxy berries hanging directly from the large limbs and branches, and the whole tree impressing one as strangely tropical. 30 cents each, $3 per dozen.