Sunday 10 January 2016

Happy New Year






FROM: The zoological miscellany : being descriptions of new, or interesting animals. W.E. Leach. London 1814.



Left: Voluta Zebra
Ovate-Fusiform, volute, white inclined to yellowish; with longituidinal brown lines; pillar with five folds, the upper one obscure.


This shell, which is aptly named from its resemblance to the zebra horse, is a native of the New-Holland seas, where it seems to be not uncommon.

Tuesday 5 January 2016

POMONA HEREFORDIENSIS (1811)

The Orange Pippin

The Orange Pippin is cultivated in different parts of the County of Hereford under different names, and has been not unfrequently confounded with the Loan Pearmain, which it somewhat resembles in form and colour; but it is a larger and a much more sweet apple. The name does not seem perfectly appropriate, for the colour of the apple is very different from that of an orange : but when the crop of fruit is perfectly ripe, and seen at such a distance that the red and yellow colour are mingled and blended together, the effect on the eye may be conceived to be not very widely different from that which a similar crop of very ripe Seville Oranges would produce ; and from this circumstance the Orange Pippin possibly derived its name. It is not apparently a very old variety ; for young trees of it still grow freely and bear well : but I have seen trees of it, which were at least eighty years old : and therefore the variety can now scarcely deserve culture, though it is certainly an excellent cider apple, and its yellow pulp communicates a beautiful golden tinge to the juices of other varieties. The specific gravity of its juice is about 1074. I am ignorant of its native country, and of its history previously to the last thirty years. 

From Pomona Herefordiensis  (1811) by Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq. FRS.


More on Thomas Knight HERE.