Air-plants (Epiphytes) are plants that live upon other plants or trees apparently without receiving any nutriment other than by the air. The name is restricted to flowering plants (mosses or lichens being excluded) and is suitably applied to many species of orchids. The conditions necessary to the growth of such plants are excessive heat and moisture, and hence their chief localities are the damp and shady tropical forests of Africa, Asia, and America. They are particularly abundant in Java and tropical America. Research Air-plants
Cuckoopint (Arum maculatum) or Lords-and-Ladies, is a highly poisonous perennialherb with a tuberous rhizome and basal, long-stalked sagittate leaves. The flowering stem bears a pale yellow-green, trumpet-shaped spathe, edged and sometimes spotted with purple, which encloses the purplish, cylindrical flower head. The flowers are all unisexual, the flowers of the lower spadix being female, those at the middle sterile and those at the top male. The spadix has a strong, unpleasant smell which attracts insects which crawl down inside the spathe, and in so doing pollinate the plant. The Cuckoopint bears scarlet berry fruits and is found throughout Europe in damp woods, shady copses and hedgerows particularly on soils rich in lime. Research Cuckoopint
Lily-of-the-valley is a highly poisonous perennialherb of the family Liliaceae with a tangle of underground rhizomes which in spring, bear stalked, broadly elliptic leaves, two on each stem, and later a scape with a one-sided raceme of drooping, white, sweet-scented, bell-shaped flowers. The fruit is a bright red globose berry. Lily-of-the-valley grows in the undergrowth of shady woods, in thickets and hedgerows mostly on soils rich in lime. Research Lily-of-the-Valley
Money-wort or creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummulavia) is a perennialherb of the family Primulaceae found in damp, shady places such as river banks and woods. It has a prostrate, far-creeping, angled and branched stem. The leaves are opposite, roundish to broadly ovate and short-stalked. The flowers are large, yellow and bell-shaped and grow singly on short stalks in the leaf axils. The fruit is a five-valved globose capsule, only rarely produced, the plant spreading more often by its creeping stems that root at the nodes. Money-wort has also been known as twopenny grass and herb twopence. Research Money-wort
The Nightingale (also known as the attic bird and the bulbul) is any song bird of the Passerinegenus Daulias of the Thrush family. The Common Nightingale (Daulias luscinia) is about 17 centimetres long with plumage of a rich chestnut-brown above with a rufous tinge to the tail and greyish-white below deepening in hue on the breast,. The Common Nightingale arrives in England around the middle of April frequenting groves, small shady copses, woods, quiet gardens and thick hedgerows. They feed on worms, insects and insect-larvae. The nest is made in a hollow in the ground or in a low fork in a thick bush. About five olive-green coloured eggs are laid. Research Nightingale
Round-leaved Saxifrage (Saxifraga rotundifolia) is a perennialherb of the family Saxifragaceae found in damp and shady places in mountainous areas of mixed woods in central and southern Europe. It has a basal rosette of long- stalked, roundish, pale-green, deeply toothed and often hairy leaves. The stems are stoutish, sparsely leafy and hairy. The flowers are white with yellow spots at the base and characteristic red spots towards the apex of the petals, and are arranged in loose narrow panicles. The fruit is a many- seeded capsule. Research Round-Leaved Saxifrage
Wintergreen (Pyrolas) is a genus of herbs of the family Pyrolaceae. They have a slender shortly creeping stock. The leaves are orbicular or ovate and nearly radical. The plants bear white or greenish drooping flowers, either solitary or several in a short raceme, on leaflets. Common
Wintergreen (Pyrolas minor) is found in woods and moist shady places in Europe, Northern Asia and the extreme north of America, becoming a mountain plant in Southern Europe and the Caucasus. Research Wintergreen
Birthday Girl is a romantic comedy starring Nicole Kidman, Ben Chaplin, Vincent Cassel, Mathieu Kassovitz, Kate Evans, Stephen Mangan and Sally Phillips in a story about a bank-clerk who orders a mail-order Russian bride and all goes well until two shady guests arrive for her birthday and he realises his enigmatic bride is not all she appears. Birthday Girl was directed by Jez Butterworth in 2001. Research Birthday Girl
Coffee is the seed of an evergreen shrub which is cultivated in hot climates, and is a native of Abyssinia and of Arabia. This shrub (Coffea arabica) is from 4 to 6 meters in height, and belongs to the Rubiaceae. The leaves are green, glossy on the upper surface, and the flowers are white and sweet-scented. The fruit is of an oval shape, about the size of a cherry, and of a dark-red colour when ripe. Each of these contains two cells, and each cell a single seed, which is the coffee as we see it before it undergoes the process of roasting.
Great attention is paid to the culture of coffee in Arabia. The trees are raised from seed sown in nurseries and afterwards planted out in moist and shady situations, on sloping grounds or at the foot of mountains. Care is taken to conduct little rills of water to their roots, which at certain seasons require to be constantly surrounded with moisture. When the fruit has attained its maturity cloths are placed under the trees, and upon these the labourers shake it down. They afterwards spread the berries on mats, and expose them to the sun to dry. The husk is then broken off by large and heavy rollers of wood or iron. When the coffee has been thus cleared of its husk it is again dried in the sun, and, lastly, winnowed with a large fan, for the purpose of clearing it from the pieces of husks with which it is intermingled. A pound of coffee is generally more than the produce of one tree; but a tree in great vigour will produce 3 or 4 lbs.
The best coffee has its name from Mocha, on the Red Sea. It is packed in large bales, each containing a number of smaller bales, and when good appears fresh and of a greenish-olive colour. Next in quality to the Mocha coffee may perhaps be ranked that of Southern India and that of Sri Lanka, which is strong and well flavoured; but comparatively little coffee now comes from Sri Lanka. Indonesia and Central America produce large quantities of excellent coffee. Brazilian coffee, though produced more abundantly than any other, stands at the bottom of the list as regards quality. Liberian coffee may also be mentioned. American coffee holds in the judgment of all Orientals the very last rank.
The Dutch were the first to extend the cultivation of coffee beyond the countries to which it is native. About 1690 some coffee seeds were brought to Java, where they were planted and produced fruit. By 1718 the Dutch planters of Surinam had entered on the cultivation of coffee with success, and ten years after it was introduced from that colony by the English into Jamaica, and by the French into Martinique. It was not until 1774 that the planters of Brazil, now the greatest producers of coffee in the world, commenced its cultivation.
Coffee as an article of diet is of but comparatively recent introduction. To the Greeks and Romans it was wholly unknown. From Arabia it passed to Egypt and Turkey, whence it was introduced into England by a Turkeymerchant named Edwards in 1652, whose Greek servant, named Pasqua, first opened a coffee-house in London. In 1671 an Armenian named Pascal set up a coffee-house in Paris. The excellence of coffee depends in a great measure on the skill and attention exercised in roasting it. If it be too little roasted it is devoid of flavour, and if too much it becomes acrid, and has a disagreeable, burned taste. Coffee is used in the form either of an infusion or decoction, of which the former is decidedly preferable, both as regards flavour and strength. The fine aromatic oil which produces the flavour and strength of coffee is lost by boiling. The best mode is to pour boiling water through the coffee in a biggin or strainer, which is found to extract nearly all the strength; or to pour boiling water upon it and set it upon the fire, not to exceed ten minutes. Prepared in either way it is fine and strong.
In the Asiatic mode of preparing coffee the beans are pounded, not ground; and though the Turks and Arabsboil the coffee, they traditionally boil each cup by itself and only for a moment, so that the effect is much the same as that of infusion. In Arabia some additional spicing, generally of saffron or some aromatic seeds, is considered indispensable; but neither Turks nor Arabians use sugar or cream with coffee.
Coffee acts as a nervous stimulant, a property which it owes mainly to the alkaloidcaffeine. It thus promotes cheerfulness and removes languor, and also aids digestion; but in some constitutions it induces sleeplessness and nervous tremblings. Research Coffee
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Air-plants
