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Secale cereale, Linné.*
The Rye. Orient, but perhaps wild only in the country
between the Caspian and Black Seas. Mentioned here as
the hardiest of all grain-plants for our higliest alpine regions.
There are annual and biennial varieties, while a few allied
species, hitherto not generally used for fodder or cereal
culture, are perennial. The Rye, though not so nutritious as
wheat, furnishes a most wholesome well-flavoured bread
which keeps for many days, and is most extensively used in
Middle and North Europe and Asia. The grain moreover
can be reared in poor soil and cold climates, where wheat
will no longer thrive. In produce of grain Rye is not
inferior to wheat in colder countries, while the yield of
straw is larger, and the culture less exhaustive. I t is a
hardy cereal, not readily subject to disease, and can be grown
on some kinds of peaty or sandy or moory gi’ound. The
sowing must not be effected at a period of much wetness.
Wide sand-tracts would be uninhabitabe, if it were not for the
facility to provide human sustenance from this grateful corn.
I t dislikes moist ground. Sandy soil gives the best grain.
I t is a very remarkable fact, that since ages in some tracts of
Europe, Rye has been prolifically cultivated from year to
year without interruption. In this respect Rye stands
favourably alone among alimentary plants. I t furnishes in
cold countries also the earliest green-fodder, and the return
is large. Dr. Sonder observed in cultivated turf-heaths with
much humus, that the spikelets produce three or even four
fertile florets, and thus each spike will yield up to eighty
beautiful seeds. Langethal recommends for argillaceous soils
a mixture of early varieties of wheat and rye, the united crops
furnishing grain for excellent bread. When the Rye-grain
becomes attacked by Cordyceps purpurea (Er.), or very similar
species of fungi, then it becomes dangei’ously unwholesome, but
then also a very important medicinal substance, namely Ergot,
is obtained. The biennial Wallaclnan variety of Rye can he
mown or depastured prior to the season of its forming
grain. In alpine regions Wallacliian Rye is sown with
pine-seeds, for shelter of the pine-seedlings in tbe first year.
Secale creticum, Linné.
Though probably only a variety of S. cereale (L.), it deserves
specially to he mentioned as furnishing a bread of peculiar taste.
Sechium edule, Swartz.
West India. The Chocho or Chayota. The large root of
this climber can be consumed as a culinary vegetable, while
the good-sized fruits are also edible. The plant comes in
climates like ours to perfection.
Selinum anesorrhizum, F. v. Muller. (Anesorrhiza Capensis,
Ch. and Schl.)
South Africa. The root of this biennial herb is edible. A.
montana (Eckl. and Zeyh.), a closely allied plant, yields likewise
an edible root, and so. it is with a few otber species of
the section Anesorrhiza.
Selinum Monnieri, Linné.
From East Asia now extending to South Europe, preferring
moist places. An annual herb, praised by the Chinese as
valuable for medicinal purposes.
Sequoia sempervirens, Endlicher.* (Taxodium sempervirens,
Lambert.)
Red-Wood or Bastard-Cedar of North-West America, chiefly
California. A splendid tree, 360 feet high, occasionally with
a diameter of the stem of fifty-five feet. The wood is reddish,
close-veined, but light and brittle. One of the most colossal
trees of the globe. Its groAvth is about thirty-two feet in sixteen
years. Often found on metamorphic sandstone.
Sequoia Wellingtonia, Seemann.* (Wellingtonia gigantea,
Lindley.)
Mammoth-tree. California, up to 5000 feet above the sea.
This, the biggest of all trees, attains a stem of 320 feet in
length and 112 feet in circumference, the oldest trees being
estimated at 1100 years. The total height of a tree will
occasionally be 450 feet. A stem broken at 300 feet had yet
a diameter of eighteen feet. The wood is soft and white
when felled, afterwards it turns red. Traditional accounts
seem to have overrated the height of the Mammoth-tree. In
the Calaveras-grove two of the largest trees, which may have
been the tallest of all, were destroyed; the two highest now
existing there are respectively 325 and 319 feet high, with a
circumference of forty-five and forty feet at six feet from the
ground. A t the Mariposa-grove the highest really measured
trees are 272, 270 and 260 feet high, but one of these has the
enormous circumference of sixty-seven feet at six feet from
the ground, while another, the height of which is not recorded,
is ninety-three feet in girth at the ground and sixty-four feet
at eleven feet from it; the branches of this individual tree
are as thick as the stems of large Elms. The height of the
Calaveras-grove is 4760 feet above sea-level. Both Sequoias
produce shoots from the root after the stem is cut away.
Sesamum Indicum, Linné.
The Gingili. Southern Asia, extending eastwards to Japan.
This annual herb is cultivated as far as 42° north latitude.
The oil, fresh expressed from the seeds, is the best for table
use ; free of any unpleasant taste. In Greece the seeds are
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