the stove of the Dublin College Botanic Garden, one, too, which 
he reared himself from seeds collected at Madeira, by the Right 
Honourable George Knox, in 1810. “ After it had been grown 
in a pot,” says Dr. Mackay, in the remarks he presented to the 
Meeting of the British Association at Edinburgh, 1850, “ for 
ten years, it was planted out into a bed of earth in a large stove 
or hot-house. About three years ago it became too tall for the 
house ; and, in order still to secure the plant for the collection, 
the following experiment, suggested by my intelligent first as- 
sistant, Mr. Bain, was made by him. The stem, which was 
about fifteen inches in diameter immediately under the leaves, 
and eighteen feet high, was, during six months, gradually cut 
across four feet above the root, about an inch deep at a time to 
prevent bleeding. The root and lower portion of the stem were 
then removed as being useless, and the upper portion of the 
stem suspended immediately above the former station of the 
plant. In the course of eight months, during which time it was 
kept perfectly dry, it threw out several thick aerial roots from 
the edge of the stem where it had been cut. It was then 
lowered into its former position, and had the stem and roots 
sunk four feet in dry sandy mould. This was done about a 
year and a half ago, and the plant, which is now in excellent 
health, has lately flowered, and is, I believe, the first that has 
done so in Great Britain or Ireland.” 
Our good friend did not fail to send us a flowering specimen 
and leaves: but the plates of this publication are most unsuited 
to receive anything like a fair sample of the full-sized leaves and 
inflorescence : so that we have hence thought it better to con- 
fine our figures chiefly to analysis, and occupy the rest of the 
plate with a copy taken from the “ Atlas” of Messrs. Webb and 
Berthelot’s ‘ History of the Canary Islands,’ of the celebrated 
“ Dragon ‘Tree of Orotava”’ as it is usually called, of which the 
drawing was made in 1790, before the great injury done to 
the tree by the storm in 1819. In the latter state, an exceed- 
ingly beautiful large plate has been published in London by 
the same gentleman (Mr. Williams) who executed Mr. Webb’s 
drawings. “It is now,” says M. de Humboldt, in his celebrated 
‘Travels, “ included within the precincts of the garden of M. Fran- 
chi, in the small town of Orotava, one of the most delicious spots 
in the world. In 1799, when we climbed the peak of Teneriffe, we 
found that this enormous vegetable was forty-five feet in circumfer- 
ence a little above the root. Sir George Staunton affirms that, at 
ten feet high, its diameter is twelve feet ; its height was reckoned 
at from seventy to seventy-five feet.” Some thirty years after 
Humboldt’s visit, M. Berthelot (m 1819) took up his abode in 
the ruined chambers of Za Casa Franchi, and gives the following 
