Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/114

 A L O

A L O

7. The mountain Alder, with curled, ferrated, and glutinous leaves. 8. The mountain Alder, with broad curled, glu- tinous, and not ferrated leaves. Tournef. Inft. p. 587.

Alnus bamfera, the berry-bearing Alder, in botany, a name given, by fome writers, to the frangula. See the article Frangula.

Alnus alfo denotes a part in the antient theatres at the greateft diftance from the ftage. Pittfc. Lex. Ant. T. 1. p. 74.

ALOA, in antiquity, a Grecian feaft, celebrated by the Athe- nian hufbandmen, in honour of Ceres, as inventrefs and pro- tedtrefs of corn and tillage.

The word is Greek, «?«*«, fomctimes alfo written «^«. It is formed of cthm^ grange, or barn ; it being in thefe places that much of the folcmnity pafled.

Authors are not agreed as to the time, or occafion of the ce- lebration of the Aioa. Some fuppofe it to have been before the beginning of harveft ; others will have it to have been a rejoicing after harveft, not unlike our barveji-bome. The moft probable opinion is that which fixes it to the month of Poflidion, anfwering to our December, and to have taken its denomination from its being in the threlhing time, when the hufbandmen lived much in their barns. See further concern- ing the Aha in Suid. Lex. in voc. Eujlatb. adll 1. Hoflm. Lex. Univ. T. 1. p. 155. BI&. Univ. T. 6. p. 78.

ALOE, in botany, the name of a genus of plants, the cha- racters of which are thefe. The flower is liliaceous, and confifts of one petal, which is of a tubular form, and is di vided into fix fegments at the edge- In fome fpecies of thi genus, the cup, and in others the piftii, finally becomes a fruit, or feed-veflel, of an oblong cylindric form, divided into three cells, and containing flat and femicircular feeds. The fpecies of Aloe, enumerated by Mr. Toumefort, an thefe.

I. The common Aloe. 2. The true Aloe, with a thorny rib. 3. The narrow leaved, purple flowered, prickly, fuc cotrine Aloe. 4. The Aloe with leaves terminating in very long prickles. 5. The lefler Aloe, with the leaves terminat ing in very fharp prickles. 6. The American Aloe, with broad blueifh green leaves. 7. The foboliferous American Aloe. 8. The foboliferous American Aloe, with fewer prickles. 9. The foboliferous American Aloe, with beauti- fully variegated leaves. 10. The erect Aloe, with extremely fharp thorns. 11. The fmooth American Aloe, with very broad fhining leaves. 12. The Aloe of Surinam, with broad, fliining, and ferrated leaves. 13. The lefTer American Aloe, with leaves armed at their edges with very numerous, but foft prickles. 14. The Erafilian Aloe, called by Margrave, Caraguata. 'Tournef. Inft, p. 366.

The proper earth for planting thefe vegetables in, is, one half frefh light earth from a common, and the reft an equal mix- ture of white fea-fand and fitted lime rubbifh ; and this mix- ture fhould be always made fix or eight months, before the plants are to be fet in it. The common great American Aloe is very hardy, with refpect to cold, and being planted in a very dry foil, and under a fouth wall, has endured abroad in mild winters, and is always very well kept in pots, or tubs, in a common green-houfe, with oranges and myrtles, but muft have very little water in winter. Moft of the other Aloes are belt preferved in an airy glafs-cafe, in which there is a ftove, to make a little fire in very bad weather. The tendereft kinds, fuch as- the broad, green-leaved, curaflb kind, with black fpines ; that kind, called in the Weft-Indies, the filk-grafs ; the foboliferous American kind ; and fome others, require a greater (hare of heat to preferve them in winter, and fhould be kept in a good ftove, in a degree of heat, according to Fowler's Thermometer, ten degrees above temperate. Many other kinds may alfo be kept in this heat ; but the greater the heat, the more water they always require.

About the beginning of June, it is ufual in England to fet the pots of Aloes out of the houfe ; but they fhould be fet under the flicker of hedges, or trees, to keep them from the vio- lence of the fun. The rains alfo which ufually fall in this and the following month, are very apt to rot them. It is therefore beft to keep them under cover the greateft part of the year.

The beft time to (hift thefe plants is the middle of July. They are, on this occafion, to be taken out of the pots, the loofe earth to be picked from about their roots, and the de- cayed or mouldy parts of them cut off; then a few ftones are to be put at the bottom of the pot, and it is to be filled with the compofition before defcribed, and the plants carefully put in, the roots being fo difpofed, as not to interfere with one another. They are to be carefully watered after this, at times, for three weeks, and fet in a fhady place. The common kind will bear the open air from May to Octo- ber, and fhould be fluffed every year. All the Aloes are pro- pagated by off-fets, which fhould be taken from the mother plant, at the time when it is fhifted ; they are to be planted in very fmall pots of the proper mixed earth ; and if that part of them which joined to the mother plant, be obferved to be moift when taken off, it fhould lye on the ground in a fhady place, two or three days before it is planted, otherwife it will 1 rot. After planting thefe, they fhould remain in a fhady)

place a fortnight, and then be removed to a very moderate hot- bed, plunging the pots therein ; which will help their ftriking new roots. Toward the end of Auguft, they muft be, by degrees, hardened to the open air, by taking off the glafles of the hot-bed, and in September they may be removed into the green-houfe.

Moft of the African Aloes flower with us annually, after they are three or four years old ; but the American Aloes flowers only once, the root decaying when it has flowered. It al- ways, at this time, however, produces very numerous oft- fets ; fo that the old one is replaced by a great number of young ones. It has been fuppofed, that this fpecies flowers only in an hundred years j but that has been abundantly proved a miftake ; but the flowering with us, being fomething rare, is ufually much talked of. The exprefhon of fome body who has firft laid this, has been fo far millmderftood by thofe who repeated it, that it was long fuppofed that the flowers, when they fhoot out, give a crack like a gun. Moft of the African Aloes afford plenty of off-fets ; but thofe which do not, may be propagated, by cutting oft" one of the under leaves of a flour iflitng plant, and, after laying it two or three days in the fliade, planting it in a fmall pot of earth, flightly watering it, and planting the pot in a moderate hot-bed, fkreening it from too much fun, and watering it gently at times, till it has taken root. The beft feafon for this is in the month of June ; and thofe fet at this time, pufh out heads before winter. Miller's Gardn. Diet,

The Aloe is a plant cultivated with great curiofity in our gardens, and reputed one of the chief ornaments thereof. — In reality, there is fcarce any tribe of plants which affords a more pleafing variety than thefe, from the odd fhape of their leaves, the various manner of their [potting, and being fome of them covered, as it were, with pearls. Diofcorides, Pliny, and the antient naturalifts, feem only to have been acquainted with one fpecies of Aloes \ which is the Aloe vulgaris Afiatica, from whence the drug of that name is procured.

But the late travels into Afia, Africa, and America, have oc- casioned the difcovery of numerous other forts unknown to antiquity.

The flovvnefs of tiie Aloes arriving at maturity, feems owing to the vifcidity and lentor of its juice, which requires a num- ber of years before it be fufficiently elaborated and fubtilized, to caufe an expanfion ; but this is afterwards compenfated by the bulk to which it arrives, the height of its ftyle, the ve- locity with which it fhoots, and the prodigious number of flowers it produces, which ordinarily amounts to feveral thoufands. Another tradition is, that when the Aloe begins to fhoot, it finifhes its whole growth in thirty-fix or forty- eight hours a : whereas it has fince appeared, that the plant ordinarily takes up three months, viz. from May to July, from the firft budding of the ftem, to the finifhing of the flowers. There are, however, exceptions from this rule. Munting relates, that an Aloe in the garden of cardinal Far- ncfe, at Rome, fhot up in one month to the height of twenty- three feet ; and another at Madrid, in one night, ten feet high, and in eight days thereafter, twenty-five feet more. The people imagined this fo facred a bufmefs, that they built a chapel upon the place b. — -[ a BorelL Obferv. 1. c. 2. b Phil. Tranf. N°. 111. p. 50. See alfo Scarell. ap. Giorn. de Letter, d'ltal. T. 4. p. 97.]

The progrefs of the bloflbming of the Venetian Aloes, in the garden of Sig. Papafava, was obferved as follows. The plant began to fhoot its ftem on the 20th of May, which by the 19th of June was rifen the height of four Paduan feet and one inch ; on the 24th of the fame month, it had gained ten inches more; on the 29th eight more, on which day it began to emit branches; on the 6th of July, it had gained afoot one inch ; on the 17 th, one foot eight inches more ; on the 7th of Auguft, one foot and an half. Laftly, from that day to the 30th, it grew but fiowly ; but continued emittino- branches and flowers. The trunk at the bottom meafured a foot thick ; the branches were twenty-three in number, on the top of each was a knot, or collection of flowers ; on the firft branches were an hundred and twelve, on others an hundred and ten, and on others an hundred flowers each. Tjljey yielded little fmell, but what was of it was agree- able.

It is related of the Aloe, that it burfts out with a vehement noife and cracking, like the cxploiion of a gun, fo as even to make the earth quake c. Something like this has been re- lated, by good authors, concerning the arbor crepitans in India, whofe fruit, when ripe, is fuid to burft with a noife equal to that of a great gun 5. ; but as to any noife at the eruption of the ftem of the Aloe, later writers are entirely filent. Some, who have iiftened with great curiofity on the occafion, have perceived none ; yet a late French writer, M. Garidel, defends the report of its noife, againft M. Ray, whom he taxes with incredulity for disbelieving it e. — [ c Borell. loc. cit. d Merer*. Berg. Hift. Nat. 1. 15. c. 10. e Nouv. Rep. Lett. T. 56. p. 389.]

When die tree has once flowered, it quickly dies ; being quite

exhaufted by fo copious a birth. They feldom flower till of

a confiderable age, and this but once, during the life of the

4 plant;