Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/22

 temperate or colder zones where a season favourable to vegetation is succeeded by an unfavourable or winter season, leaves of evergreens must be protected from the frost and cold drying winds, and are therefore tougher or more leathery in texture than those of deciduous trees, and frequently, as in pines, firs and other conifers, are needle-like, thus exposing a much smaller surface to the drying action of cold winds. The number of seasons for which the leaves last varies in different plants; every season some of the older leaves fall, while new ones are regularly produced. The common English bramble is practically evergreen, the leaves lasting through winter and until the new leaves are developed next spring. In privet also the leaves fall after the production of new ones in the next year. In other cases the leaves last several years, as in conifers, and may sometimes be found on eleven-year-old shoots.

 EVERLASTING, or, a plant belonging to the division Tubuliflorae of the natural order Compositae, known botanically as Helichrysum orientale. It is a native of North Africa, Crete, and the parts of Asia bordering on the Mediterranean; and it is cultivated in many parts of Europe. It first became known in Europe about the year 1629, and has been cultivated since 1815. In common with several other plants of the same group, known as “everlastings,” the immortelle plant possesses a large involucre of dry scale-like or scarious bracts, which preserve their appearance when dried, provided the plant be gathered in proper condition. The chief supplies of Helichrysum orientale come from lower Provence, where it is cultivated in large quantities on the ground sloping to the Mediterranean, in positions well exposed to the sun, and usually in plots surrounded by dry stone walls. The finest flowers are grown on the slopes of Bandols and Ciotat, where the plant begins to flower in June. It requires a light sandy or stony soil, and is very readily injured by rain or heavy dews. It can be propagated in quantity by means of offsets from the older stems. The flowering stems are gathered in June, when the bracts are fully developed, all the fully-expanded and immature flowers being pulled off and rejected. A well-managed plantation is productive for eight or ten years. The plant is tufted in its growth, each plant producing 60 or 70 stems, while each stem produces an average of 20 flowers. About 400 such stems weigh a kilogramme. A hectare of ground will produce 40,000 plants, bearing from 2,400,000 to 2,800,000 stems, and weighing from 5 to 6 tons, or from 2 to 3 tons per acre. The colour of the bracts is a deep yellow. The natural flowers are commonly used for garlands for the dead, or plants dyed black are mixed with the yellow ones. The plant is also dyed green or orange-red, and thus employed for bouquets or other ornamental purposes.

Other species of Helichrysum and species of allied genera with scarious heads of flowers are also known as “everlastings.” One of the best known is the Australian species H. bracteatum, with several varieties, including double forms, of different colours; H. vestitum (Cape of Good Hope) has white satiny heads. Others are species of Helipterum (West Australia and South Africa), Ammobium and Waitzia (Australia) and Xeranthemum (south Europe). Several members of the natural order Amarantaceae have also “everlasting” flowers; such are Gomphrena globosa, with rounded or oval heads of white, orange, rose or violet, scarious bracts, and Celosia pyramidalis, with its elegant, loose, pyramidal inflorescences. Frequently these everlastings are mixed with bleached grasses, as Lagurus ovatus, Briza maxima, Bromus brizaeformis, or with the leaves of the Cape silver tree (Leucadendron argenteum), to form bouquets or ornamental groups.

 EVERSLEY, CHARLES SHAW LEFEVRE, (1794–1888), speaker of the British House of Commons, eldest son of Mr Charles Shaw (who assumed his wife’s name of Lefevre in addition to his own on his marriage), was born in London on the 22nd of February 1794, and educated at Winchester and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was called to the bar in 1819, and though a diligent student was also a keen sportsman. Marrying a daughter of Mr Samuel Whitbread, whose wife was the sister of Earl Grey, afterwards premier, he thus became connected with two influential political families, and in 1830 he entered the House of Commons as member for Downton, in the Liberal interest. In 1831 he was returned, after a severe contest, as one of the county members for Hampshire, in which he resided; and after the passing of the Reform Act of 1832 he was elected for the Northern Division of the county. For some years Mr Shaw Lefevre was chairman of a committee on petitions for private bills. In 1835 he was chairman of a committee on agricultural distress, but as his report was not accepted by the House, he published it as a pamphlet addressed to his constituents. He acquired a high reputation in the House of Commons for his judicial fairness, combined with singular tact and courtesy, and when Mr James Abercromby retired in 1839, he was nominated as the Liberal candidate for the chair. The Conservatives put forward Henry Goulburn, but Mr Shaw Lefevre was elected by 317 votes to 299. The period was one of fierce party conflict, and the debates were frequently very acrimonious; but the dignity, temper and firmness of the new speaker were never at fault. In 1857 he had served longer than any of his predecessors, except the celebrated Arthur Onslow (1691–1768), who was speaker for more than 33 years in five successive parliaments. Retiring on a pension, he was raised to the peerage as Viscount Eversley of Heckfield, in the county of Southampton. His appearances in the House of Lords were very infrequent, but in his own county he was active in the public service. From 1859 he was an ecclesiastical commissioner, and he was also appointed a trustee of the British Museum. He died on the 28th of December 1888, the viscountcy becoming extinct.

His younger brother, Sir (1797–1879), who was senior wrangler at Cambridge in 1818, had a long and distinguished career as a public official. He was under-secretary for the colonies, and had much to do with the introduction of the new poor law in 1834, and with the foundation of the colony of South Australia; then having served on several important commissions he was made clerk of the parliaments in 1855, and in the same year became one of the first civil service commissioners. He helped to found the university of London, of which he was vice-chancellor for twenty years, and also the Athenaeum Club. He died on the 20th of August 1879.

The latter’s son, (b. 1832), was created Baron Eversley in 1906, in recognition of long and prominent services to the Liberal party. He had filled the following offices:—civil lord of the admiralty, 1856; secretary to the board of trade, 1869–1871; under-secretary, home office, 1871; secretary to the admiralty, 1871–1874; first commissioner of works, 1881–1883; postmaster-general, 1883–1884; first commissioner of works, 1892–1893; president of local government board, 1894–1895; chairman of royal commission on agriculture, 1893–1896.

 EVESHAM, a market-town and municipal borough in the Evesham parliamentary division of Worcestershire, England, 107 m. W.N.W. of London by the Great Western railway, and 15 m. S.E. by E. of Worcester, with a station on the Redditch-Ashchurch branch of the Midland railway. Pop. (1901) 7101. It lies on the right (north) bank of the Avon, in the rich and beautiful Vale of Evesham. The district is devoted to market-gardening and orchards, and the trade of the town is mainly agricultural. Evesham is a place of considerable antiquity, a Benedictine house having been founded here by St Egwin in the 8th century. It became a wealthy abbey, but was almost wholly destroyed at the Dissolution. The churchyard, however, is entered by a Norman gateway, and there survives also a magnificent isolated bell-tower dating from 1533, of the best ornate Perpendicular workmanship. The abbey walls surround the churchyard, but almost the only other remnant is a single Decorated arch. Close to the bell-tower, however, are the two parish churches of St Lawrence and of All Saints, the former of the 16th century, the latter containing Early English work, and the ornate chapel of Abbot Lichfield, who erected the bell-tower. Other buildings include an Elizabethan town hall, the grammar school, founded by Abbot Lichfield, and the picturesque