[2451] This juice like that of the squill has an irritating effect on the skin, a fact of which the cultivators in Mauritius are well aware.
[2452] Vanilla grown in Europe is devoid of such cells. We can fully corroborate this statement (first made by Berg) from the examination of very aromatic pods produced in 1871 at Hillfield House, Reigate. We have even failed in finding those cells in any vanilla of recent importation (1878).
[2453] Culture du vanillier au Mexique, in the Revue Coloniale, ii. (1849) 383-390; also J. W. von Müller, Reisen in ... Mexico, ii. (Leipzig, 1864) 284-290.
[2454] Documents Statistiques réunis par l’Administration des Douanes sur le Commerce de la France, année 1872, p. 64.
[2455] From observations made at Florence in the spring of 1872, I am led to regard the three species here named as quite distinct. The following comparative characters are perhaps worth recording:—
I. germanica—flower-stem scarcely 1½ times as tall as leaves; flowers more crowded than in I. pallida, varying in depth of colour but never pale blue.
I. pallida—bracts brown and scariose; flower-stem twice as high as leaves.
I. florentina—bracts green and fleshy; flower-stem short as in I. germanica; is a more tender plant than the other two, and blossoms a little later.—D. H.
[2456] For further information, consult Blümner, Die gewerbliche Thätigkeit der Völker des klassischen Alterthums, 1869. 57. 76. 83.
[2457] Flora Dalmatica, i. (1842) 116.