File:The Gardeners' Chronicle - a weekly illustrated journal of horticulture and allied subjects (1895) (14766191852).jpg

Identifier: gardenerschronic0318gard (find matches)
Title: The Gardeners' Chronicle : a weekly illustrated journal of horticulture and allied subjects
Year: 1895 (1890s)
Authors: Gardeners' chronicle (London, England : 1874)
Subjects: Ornamental horticulture Horticulture Plants, ornamental
Publisher: London: (Gardeners' Chronicle)
Contributing Library: Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, McLean Library
Digitizing Sponsor: LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation

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e isactually congenial and subservient to its existence,for the tree, instigated by the conflagrations, formsitself into great plantations. The name of this treeis Chaparro (Rhopala obovata), indigenous toColombia and other South American countries. Itattains a height of 15 to 20 feet, and its distortedtrunks measure from 9 to 12 inches in diameter.It is widely distributed in Colombia, for I havefound it at the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, and plantations. There is a popular belief in Tolima,where alluvial gold abounds, that this tree flourishesonly on those seductive lands, serving as a guide tosearchers after the precious metal. The bark of the tree is peculiarly constituted. Itconsists of a congeries of integuments or semi-detached layers. The outer portion, about .; inchthick, performs no organic function, and this portionof the bark, in conjunction with its peculiar compo-sition, protects the inner vital integuments frominjury by fire. The form and structure of the tree may have
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Fis, 84.—oijontoolossum coronariom.(la the Gardens of W. W. Grovee, Esq., The Larches, Alderley Edge, Cheshire.) dispersed inland 1000 miles from the sea. In con-tact with the great forest, it maintains a precariousexistence. Bat, as already explained, it usurpsdominion in places where no other tree can grow.In Tolima it abounds on the slopes and ridges ofthe hills at elevations from 1000 to 3500 feet. Inthis department alone hundreds of square miles ofthe lower hills, which have been reduced to sterilityby incessant burnings, are occupied by this diminutivetree, and it assumes the aspect of vast systematically. formed and well-kept plantations. This is morethan a triumph of the * survival of the fittest. It ii very remarkable that these fire-begottenplantations are nowhere Crowded to excess ; on thecontrary, the tree* are so regularly placed that theiraspect vies with that of the most carefully-formed originated from the severe ordeal through which ithas survived. For instance, acc

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