Afrocarpus gracilior

Afrocarpus gracilior (Pilger) C.N.Page
Notes from the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh 45: 383. 1988.

Basionym : Podocarpus gracilior Pilg. Das Pflanzenreich 4(5): 71. 1903.

Synonyms : Taxus falcata Thunb., Afrocarpus falcatus (Thuinb.) C.N.Page, Podocarpus gracilior Pilger, Podocarpus falcatus (Thunb.) R.Br. ex Mirb.


One of several trees at Monserrate - this is the largest.


Árbol siempreverde, dioico, que puede sobrepasar los 40 m de talla, aunque en cultivo suele alcanzar los 20-25 m de altura, con una copa muy densa y un tronco grueso de corteza delgada, mas bien lisa y de color castaño grisáceo, exfoliándose con el tiempo en escamas irregulares que dejan ver una superficie de tonos rosados. Hojas dispuestas en las ramillas en espiral o a veces de forma opuesta o subopuesta. Lámina a veces falcada, cortamente peciolada, de linear a linear-lanceolada, de 3-5 x 0,3-0,5 cm, con la base estrechándose en un corto pecíolo que suele estar retorcido y mantiene a la hoja erecta, el margen entero y el ápice estrechándose abruptamente en una punta corta, aguda o roma. Tienen una textura algo coriácea, y son de color verde oscuro, a menudo cubiertas de una pruina grisácea; el nervio central es poco visible en el haz y algo más marcado en el envés. Conos masculinos axilares, en grupos de 1-4, erectos, delgados, de 6-15 x 3 mm, de color marrón-rosado. Conos femeninos solitarios, sobre un pie no carnoso, sino más bien leñoso, que se expande en el ápice en un receptáculo carnoso, duro, ovoide o esférico, de 1,5-2 cm de diámetro, de color verde al principio, tornándose amarillento en la madurez. Contiene 1 semilla dura y rugosa, casi esférica, con aspecto de una drupa, que tarda un año en madurar.

http://www.arbolesornamentales.com/Podocarpusfalcatus.htm

Agathis robusta

Agathis robusta (C.Moore ex F.Muell.) F.M.Bailey
Bailey, F.M. (1883), A Synopsis of the Queensland Flora: 498 [comb. nov.]

Araucariaceae

At Monserrate the largest Kauri Pine is Agathis robusta. In 1997 it was measured at 43m high with a girth of 5.9m.

Australian National Herbarium: Australian plants are all referred to subsp. robusta, but subspecies rank is usually not used in this species in Australia. A. robusta subsp. nesophila Whitmore occurs in New Guinea and New Britain.

basionym: Dammara robusta C.Moore ex F.Muell.

synonyms :

Agathis palmerstonii F.M.Bailey

Dammara robusta C.Moore ex F.Muell.

Agathis palmerstonii F.M.Bailey

Dammara palmerstonii F.Muell.

Dammara palmerstoni orth. var. F.Muell.

Dammara sp. (Wide Bay)

Dammara robusta C.Moore ex Parl. nom. illeg.

Jardins da Junqueira

O Instituto
Por Instituto de Coimbra
Edição de Imprensa da Universidade, 1907
p.293

F. Ngré p. 248

Spanish and Portuguese Gardening,

Spanish and Portuguese Gardening, in respect to its horticultural Productions and Planting (1822)

The earliest of the few Spanish authors who have written on gardens, is Herrera whose book on rural economy appeared early in the seventeenth century. It contains a treatise on gardens, (De las Huertas,') in which he distinguishes only two sorts; one for " delight and provision for the house," and the other for supplying the public market. Private gardens, lie says, need not be extensive; those for selling vegetables and fruits should lie near a town or village, and well supplied with water. He gives directions for cultivating the vine, fig, olive, apple, pear, and the common culinary plants. Of these, the soil and climate are peculiarly favorable to the alliaceous and cucurbitacious tribes, some sorts of which, as the onion and winter melon, form articles of foreign commerce.

Spain possesses, native or naturalized, all the fruits of Italy, and, like that country, can boast an immense variety of the melon, the grape, the fig, and the orange; the three last forming important articles of commerce, may be considered as belonging to the general economy of the country rather than to gardening. D. Roxas Clemente has published a work describing 120 varieties of the grape, as grown in one province only. We do not know that the pine-apple has been cultivated in Spain. Hot-houses are only to be found in the botanic garden at Madrid, and in some merchants gardens near Lisbon.

Rise, Progress, and present State of Gardening in Portugal

520. Gardening in Portugal is very little attended to as an art of design and taste. The quintas, or country-seats, of the principal nobility are generally in ruins, and many even of the royal residences have an air of desolation. Some merchants, principally foreigners, have villas in the immediate neighbourhood of Lisbon and Oporto; but these are exceptions to the general rule. The style of all is nearly the same. Every quinta has numerous stone cisterns, or fountains, and most have a small patch of ground lying high among the surrounding crags of rock, where, carefully shaded from the sun by hedges of palm, and sedulously watered every day, the lettuce and other vegetables requiring a cooler climate are cultivated. Carnations are generally grown in antique-shaped earthen pots, or in deep layers of earth, upon the top of the stone walls of the gardens. Open galleries communicating with the sitting-rooms are often carried round the outsides of these villas, somewhat in the style of the Swiss farm-houses. (Baillie's Lisbon.)

521. Among the principal gardens in Portugal may be mentioned that of the palace at Belem, which is laid out in the geometric style. Attached to this palace is a botanic garden, and also a museum containing an anatomical collection.

The royal palace at Queluz is a neat, agreeable place, surrounded by forests and pasture-land. Part of the road to it from Lisbon is lined with myrtles and geraniums grown wild. The gardens are decorated with a variety of handsome bridges, temples, waterfalls, fishponds, &c. The park, woods, and pleasure-grounds are extensive, and abound in game. The grandees possess the right of shooting on every royal park in Portugal, and can confer that privilege on others.

The grounds of the Marialva palace are always open to the public, and are generally crowded on Sundays and holidays. The palace is celebrated for its magnificence; the grounds are rich and very extensive: while the prospects they command are extremely beautiful. The garden near the house is laid out in the geometric style, and affords a striking contrast to the wild and picturesque scenery by which it is surrounded.

The quinta of the Penha Verde (the green rock) is so called from a lofty mountain rising immediately behind it in the form of a cone covered to the utmost peak with a luxuriant vegetation, that forms a line contrast to the bare and craggy rocks that surround it. The noble woods belonging to this seat are so umbrageous, and are so constantly refreshed by numerous fountains, that it is possible to wander among them during the most sultry hours of the day without incurring either heat or fatigue. The grounds are not devoid of that constant appendage to every Portuguese quinta, a sort of terrace, accommodated with seats, and shaded by vines, myrtles, or other light foliage, raised upon the wall which overlooks the public road. Here the ladies of the family consume the greater portion of their time watching the passers by.

522. There are public gardens in Lisbon near the Roscio, where the fashionables of the town occasionally walk. (Broughton's Letters, &c.).

523. The English Cemetery at Lisbon is very picturesque. It contains a handsome chapel, and is of considerable extent. It is planted with pine trees, which give a somewhat melancholy shade: verdant shrubs adorn the avenues, and flowers are planted on the graves. Fielding is buried in this cemetery; but there is no tombstone over his remains. The Dutch have a share in the enclosure, as have the Germans, who hare a separate chapel.

524. Gardening in Portugal, as an art of culture. Portugal is adapted by nature for the easy culture of the vegetable productions of the torrid and temperate zones. But though the first coloniser of India, till within a few years mistress of Bnuil, and still retaining extensive African possessions, she has never stood forward as the patroness ol botany. Unlike Spain, which, under every disadvantage, has laboured hard for the science, she can boast of but few individuals who, incited either by a laudable curiosity or by more enlightened views, have availed themselves of her natural advantages, to introduce those botanic treasures to which for nearly three centuries there has been access: though, like her, the ignorance, inappetence, and poverty of her legislation, have for years been formidable impediments to the advance of science. An intelligent traveller, speaking on this subject, observes, that " the same want of assiduous industry, which is so apparent in the culture of the vegetable and flower gardens of the Portuguese, is equally visible in regard to the gifts of Pomona, who has been bountiful in the extreme. There are absolutely no such things in Lisbon or its environs as either nursery-grounds, flower-shops, or gardeners regularly bred to the profession, and living upon its resources. If you desire a root of a rare carnation, or a cutting from any other particularly fine plant, you must either purchase it from the gardener of some rich man, and thus give encouragement to dishonesty, or make up your mind to relinquish your wishes."

An encyclopædia of gardening comprising the theory and practice of horticulture, floriculture, arboriculture, and landscape gardening; including all the latest improvements; a general history of gardening in all countries; and a statistical view of its present state; with suggestions for its future progress in the British isles Por John Claudius Loudon

The Royal Botanic garden at Lisbon is situated on the side of a hill sloping with a considerable declivity to the Tagus, a little below the palace of Ajuda, and enjoys a full exposure to the south.

It covers a space of about two acres, surrounded by a high wall, round which, on the inside, and up the centre, is a shady walk of Laurus nobilis, Cercis Siliquastrum, Ceratonia Siliqua, and Juglans regia. The south wall has in front a wide terrace, on which the hothouses and greenhouses are built; a flight of steps leads from these to the pleasure-garden, as it is termed ; which, together with the terrace, occupies about one half the space enclosed : the remainder is devoted to walks, and orange, lemon, and citron quarters. Art being the endeavoured object in Portuguese gardening, the eye is offended by the mechanical rigidity of the parterres, the clipped, rectangular, box alleys, and the grotesque embellishments, characteristic of the gardening of the south of Europe, which disfigure the pleasure-garden; but the number of acclimated exotics to be seen there, vigorous and unsheltered, makes it an object of the greatest interest. The plants are grown without reference to their natural orders, or to any system; and have either been casually planted from superfluities that have arisen among those classed, or from their having become too unwieldy for culture in pots or boxes. Of the genera thus cultivated in the open air but few are named, and still fewer have any specific epithet attached. The inscriptions, when they occur, are rarely intelligible, being most frequently in the Portuguese language, and extremely vague and unsatisfactory. For example, in 1829, Amaryllis reginae was marked Amaryllis vermelha com duas flares do Brasil (a red two-flowered Amaryllis from Brazil). Many genera also were named in honour of their donors, or had had their names changed to commemorate the saint's day on which they had first chanced to flower. It may be necessary here to mention, that the thermometer at Lisbon frequently falls as low as 29° and 27° of Fahr., and the fountains in the royal garden are often covered with a thin coat of ice in the morning, even when the year is as far advanced as April, without the plants appearing to suffer injury; with exception of Carica Papaya, killed, in the winter of 1825, by frost supervening on rain. Growing in an arenaceous soil, the plants, indeed, seemed to be more retarded in their growth by the heat and want of moisture in summer, than by the humidity and cold of winter. Coffea arabica fruits freely; the plants flower in October, and the berries ripen in May and June following. There is also a botanic garden at Coimbra, which was founded in 1773.

Loudon, John Claudius, An encyclopædia of gardening comprising the theory and practice of horticulture, floriculture, arboriculture, and landscape gardening; including all the latest improvements; a general history of gardening in all countries; and a statistical view of its present state; with suggestions for its future progress in the British isles, Longman, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1860, p.225

Horticulturist, Or, The Culture and Management of the Kitchen, Fruit and Forcing Garden.

Horticulturist, Or, The Culture and Management of the Kitchen, Fruit and Forcing Garden
John Claudius Loudon, William Robinson
READ BOOKS, 1871


The method of proceedure was as follows :-- About the middle of May a place was prepared for the plants on the south border ; a trench was formed from five to six feet wide at the top and about two feet at bottom, of sufficient depth to protect the plants from the wind. Three bricks on edge were then placed at regular distances in the trench in the form of a triangle for the pots to stand upon to ensure efficient drainage. Then the pine plants, which had finished blooming, and had been wintered in a pit heated with dung and leaves, at a temperature of from 50º to 60º, were brought out and placed on the bricks. The soaces betweebn the pots and the sides of the trench were then filled up to the rims of the pots, with half spent leaves. Owing to the cold rains, however these leaves never heated. A layer of charred hay or grass was then spread over all to absorb and retain the solar heat. [must be black?]. The plants received no other protection whatever. The weather continued dark, stormy and rainy. On the 1st of July ice was actually found at 6 am. Such plants as heliotropes, dahlias, French beans, and even pelargoniums, were blacked by frost in September ; but the pines received little check, and swelled well. The suckers were clean and strong, and were potted in the first week of October ; several of them fruited in the open ground next year. Some of the fruit cut out of doors in 1848 were produced by suckers taken from fruit cut out of doors the previous year. All the out-of-door fruit had pretty little crowns, and the fruit was of good quality. Mr Barnes continued the practice for many years with similar success. We do not advance it as a system that can be generally adopted ; still it proves what can be done, and it is interesting and instructive. Possibly even more could be accomplished by giving the plants a hot-bed to grow upon. This much seems certain, that the amateur or suburban gardener who can command a strong-fruiting plant to start with, a barrow of hot dung, and one of Rendle's Round Plant Protectors, need never despair of enjoying a pine-apple.