folia of some nurserymen's catalogues and many recent botanical works. The former, however, is the older and correct scientific name. This tree is a native of China and Japan, and of a slender, sparsely branched habit, growing from fifty to eighty feet high in its native countries. It is a deciduous, cone-bearing (Conifera) tree, with two-lobed, fan-shaped leaves two to three inches broad, divided about halfway down from the top. The male and female flowers are on separate trees, and to secure seed or nuts both sexes must be grown near together. The ginkgo was introduced into European gardens in 1754, and there are now many fruiting specimens, especially in France, from whence the nuts have long been secured for planting, by nurserymen and others interested in tree culture. There are very few bearing trees in this country, and one in Washington, D. C., has been fruiting for a number of years. In China and Japan the seeds or nuts are valued for their edible qualities, but they have a kind of disagreeable, balsamic taste in their raw state, although this is dispelled by roasting, after which they are quite sweet and palatable. As the trees do not begin to bear until of considerable age, and the nuts are inferior to many other kinds, I do not think the ginkgo will ever become very popular in this country as a nut tree.

GOORA NUT.-See Cola nut.

GORGON NUT.-See Fox nut.

GROUNDNUT.-The small, globular tubers of the dwarf three-leaved ginseng, Aralia trifolia, are called groundnuts in some of our Northern States, and they are frequently sought for, dug up and eaten by children, as I know from personal experience. The plant belongs to the ginseng family (Araliacea), and is closely related to the true five-leaved ginseng (Aralia quinquefolia), but our groundnut has only three leaves, instead of five; besides, it is a somewhat smaller plant, rarely more

than six to eight inches high. When the scattered seed sprout in spring, they send down a long, slender, threadlike rootstock, to a depth of from four to six inches, and at the bottom of this the small tuber is produced. It has a somewhat pungent taste, but this only whets the appetite of a boy when on a hunt for ground nuts.

GROUNDNUT.—The tubers of one of the most widely distributed climbing plants of the Eastern States, and common in low, wet grounds almost everywhere, from Canada to Florida, and westward to the Mississippi. This plant is described in most of the botanical works of the present day under the name of Apios tuberosa, and it belongs to the Pulse family (Leguminosa), and is closely related to the common and well-known wistarias, although much smaller and of a more slender habit. It is a smooth, perennial, twining vine, with pinnate leaves, and dense racemes or clusters of small brownishpurple pea-shaped flowers. The subterranean rootstocks bear long strings of edible tubers, from one to two inches long, and from an inch to an inch and a half in diameter, somewhat variable in shape, dark brown on the outside, but white within. When boiled or roasted these tubers have a rich, farinaceous, nutty flavor. This tuber or groundnut is the one described by Mr. Thomas Herriot, the historiographer of Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition to Virginia in 1585, under the Indian name of "Openawk." He says: "These roots are round, some as large as walnuts, others much larger; they grow in damp soil, many hanging together, as fixed on ropes; they are good food, either boiled or roasted." These tubers are to be found in the swamps and damp soils of Virginia at this day, just as they were at the time of Herriot's visit, but many modern historians have tried to make out that Raleigh's colonists found our common potato among the Indians at that time, although I have never been able to find a scrap of trustworthy his

tory to support such a claim, or that Raleigh himself ever planted or cultivated the American potato in Ireland or England, or, in fact, ever tasted one of these tubers.

GROUNDNUT.-See Peanut or Goober.

HAZELNUT, OR CHILE HAZEL.-This is merely a local English name for the fruit of a small evergreen tree, native of Chile, S. A., where it is known as Guevina, and this has been adopted as the name of the genus, adding the specific name of the European hazel, so we have Guevina Avellana, although in some botanical works it may be found under the name of Qudria heterophylla. It belongs to the Protea family (Proteacea). It has white, hermaphrodite flowers, in long axillary racemes; these are succeeded by coral-red fruit about the size of a large cherry; the stone or nut-like seeds being edible are largely used by the Chileans. They are said to taste like the hazel, hence the name. hardy in the southwest of England, and would probably succeed here in the Southern States. It has been planted and found to thrive in California. Readily propagated from seed or green cuttings under glass.

Trees are

HORSE-CHESTNUT.-The fruit of a genus of deciduous ornamental trees and shrubs, native of Asia and North America. The common horse-chestnut, or Esculus Hippocastanum, is a native of Asia, and was introduced into Europe over three hundred years ago, its large, smooth seeds and prickly husks probably suggest. ing both its common and scientific names, although these trees do not even belong to the same order as the true edible chestnuts (Castanea), but to the soapworts (Sapindaceae). It is supposed that the prefix, "horse," was derived from a custom among the Turks, of giving the nuts to horses as a medicine when these animals were afflicted with a cough or inclined to become windbroken. In southern Europe they are sometimes fed to

cows to increase the flow of milk, and at one time they were employed for making paste for book binders. They are scarcely edible, although containing considerable farinaceous matter, owing to the presence of a bitter narcotic principle. Our native species, better known as Buckeyes, with both smooth and prickly fruit, are equally worthless as food.

IVORY NUT.-There are two species of palms producing nuts hard enough to be employed as a substitute for ivory, in the manufacture of small articles of domestic use. But the one best known to commerce under the name of ivory nut is the fruit of Phytelephas macro. carpa, native of New Granada and other parts of Central America. This palm is a low-growing and almost decumbent species, the stem seldom more than six to eight inches in diameter; but the leaves are of immense length, or from fifteen to twenty feet, growing in bundles, or clusters. The fruit consists of about forty nuts, enclosed in a rough, spiny husk, of a globular form, produced on a short footstalk growing from the axis of the leaves, the whole bunch weighing from twenty to thirty pounds. They are two inches long, slightly triangular, and covered with a thin, pulpy coat, which becomes dry, papery and brittle when thoroughly dried, but when in its green state it is sometimes utilized by the natives for making a favorite beverage. The ripe nuts are very solid, hard, and when polished resemble ivory. Immense quantities of these nuts are imported into this country, as well as Europe, and used as a substitute for bone and ivory for making buttons, toys, and similar small articles.

JESUIT CHESTNUT.-See Water chestnut.

JICARA NUT.-A local name, in some of the Central American States for the Calabash (Crescentia Cujete). A low-growing, rather rough tree, with simple leaves, usually three growing together on a broad leafstalk.

The fruit is extremely variable, both in size and form, but mainly globose, and two to four inches in diameter. The shell is very hard, and largely used for drinking cups, and these are sometimes highly ornamented on the outside. The kernel is scarcely edible, but is used by the natives as a medicine.

JUBA NUT.-See Coquito nut.

JUVIA NUT.-See Brazil nut.

KIPPER NUT.-See Earth chestnut.

LITCHI NUT OR LEECHEE NUT.-I am inclined to think that the affix of "nut" to this Oriental fruit is an Americanism, and not used elsewhere. There are three distinct species of this fruit known among the Chinese, under the name of Litchi, Longan or Long

yen, and Rambutan, all the product of the Nepheliums, a genus of the soapberry family (Sapindaceae). By some of the earlier botanical works the litchi is placed either in the genus Dimocarpus or Euphoria. Within the past few years this fruit has appeared in our markets, in consequence of the increased trade with Oriental countries, and facilities for rapid transit across the continent. The litchi is a globular fruit, about one inch in diameter (Fig. 103), with a thin, chocolate-brown colored shell covered with wart-like protuberances. When fresh the shell is filled. with a white, jelly-like pulp, in the center of which there is one rather large, smooth brown seed. The pulp is of a most delicious sub-acid flavor, but it is often rather dry and stale in the nuts which reach us from China and Japan. The tree producing this fruit is seldom more than twenty-five feet high, with rather sturdy twigs and branches, the leaves composed of about seven oblong pointed leaflets. This is said to be one of the