Amateur Gardening – 10 July 2019

6 JULY 2019AMATEUR GARDENING 47

Crossword

...just for fun!

Chocolate cosmos

ACROSS

1 The subject of this week’s

Miscellany (9)

7 Tool with a row of pointed

teeth fixed to a long handle (4)

8 Minuscule appendage at

the base of a plant root, used

to absorb moisture and

nutrition from the soil (4)

9 Expression, according to

aesthetic principles, of what is

beautiful or appealing, as in

artemisia and heartsease (3)

11 Alcoholic drink obtained by

distilling grain mash with

juniper berries (3)

12 Imperial Chemical

Industries – known by

gardeners for its garden

chemical products in the latter

part of the last century (1,1,1)

13 A display at this week’s

Hampton Court Flower Show,

perhaps (7)

14 Three quarters of 17 down

• or a section of the curve! (3)
  15 Small supernatural
  creature, as in the peony
  ‘Fragrant Pink ’ and
  Fuchsia ‘Derby ’ (3)
  16 Hemerocallis is this lily! (3)
  18 Type of 1 across, and
  Silybum marianum is
  the ____ thistle! (4)
  19 Game of cards and a type
  of pea (4)

20 Genus of flowering

scented stocks (9))

DOWN

2 Genus of ornamental

grasses, including the

golden Japanese forest

grass (11)

3 The rose variety ‘Bowled

____’, as in a set of six balls

bowled (4)

4 Rows of summer bedding

flowers, especially in red,

white and blue colours,

could be said to be this (11)

5 Gardeners’ World, Love

Your Garden and even

Gardeners’ Question Time

• each is this on TV or
  radio! (9)
  6 Vertical conduit for
  carrying off rainwater from
  a building – and a type of
  trouser! (9)
  9 Small flying pest that sucks
  the sap of certain plants (5)
  10 Grey or brownish cat
  with darker stripes, as in
  Ophiopogon planiscapus
  ‘Little _____’! (5)
  17 Inverted ‘U’, as in
  searching for a larch
  more than three months
  ago! (4)

Coconut and cocoa

THE only link between
coconut and cocoa is the
Bounty bar! Many thought
that the name ‘cocoa’ and
the ‘coco’ of coconut were a
botanical connection, but it
isn’t so. The coconut tree
(Cocos nucifera, pictured) is
a member of the palm tree
family (Arecaceae), whereas the cocoa tree (Theobroma
cacao) is a flowering tree of the mallow family (Malvaceae).
The confusion was not helped by the old name of coconut
with an ‘a’ in the middle.

ANSWERS TO ABOVE CROSSWORD

1 Chocolate 7 Rake 8 Hair 9 Art 11 Gin 12 ICI 13 Exhibit 14 Arc 15 Imp 16 ACROSS

Day 18 Milk 19 Snap 20 Matthiola

2 Hakonechloa 3 Over 4 Traditional 5 Programme 6 Drainpipe 9 Aphid DOWN

10 Tabby 17 Arch

Wow! I didn’t know that...

Venezuela was the
country that had the
first cocoa plantations.
It takes approximately
400 individual cocoa
beans to make 1lb (0.45kg)
of chocolate.
The annual world
consumption of cocoa beans
averages approximately 600,000 tons!
The RHS lists one supplier of the cocoa tree in this
country (Treseders Nursery in Cornwall), but if you are
tempted to try it, make sure you can supply the tropical
conditions it requires!
A garden centre at Congresbury, near Bristol, is called
Cadbury Garden Centre – but it has nothing to do with
the chocolate family.
In 2013, it was thought that US actor Bill Murray ‘came
out’ as a chocoholic! He tweeted: “Chocolate comes from
cocoa, which is a tree. That makes it a plant. Chocolate is
salad.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t his tweet – someone was
impersonating him!

TO most people who know about
plants, the words ‘chocolate’ and
‘flower’ immediately conjure an
image of Cosmos atrosanguineus.
Known as the chocolate cosmos, it
is a Mexican species that first came
to the UK in 1885, when Thompson &
Morgan first listed it in the company’s
catalogue. It has dark-red/brownish flowers, which
have a scent that faintly resembles chocolate. With the
combination of colour and scent, you can see why it has
such an obvious common name – and why it has become
such a widely grown plant. It is a natural species, and it
is often said to be extinct in the wild in Mexico – but of
course it is abundant in gardens.

12 3 4

5 6

7 8

10

11 12

9

13

14 15

16 17

(^1819)
20
Chocolate cosmos
to the UK in 1885, when Thompson &
Morgan first listed it in the company’s
KEYWORD TO WORD SEARCH 469 (AG 1 JUNE):
CULTIVARS
AND THE WINNER IS: USANNE MILWARD,
OLD WINDSOR, BERKSHIRE