60 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
the surrounding woods contained the celebrated Cedron, as also lower 
down the river at San Pablo. Iwas glad to find that it was the season 
of its having ripe fruit. The villagers had already collected each their 
little hoard of Cedron, although they would not show me more than a 
few seeds, unless I would purchase some. The mode of preparation 
is simple and easy :—the fruits are gathered, which resemble in ap- 
pearance a large peach ; the outer rind or covering is thick, fleshy, and 
excessively bitter, and its large seed is immediately surrounded by a 
not very compact fibrous substance, which answers the purpose of the 
stone in stone-fruits ; this is all removed, and the seed taken out, 
separated in two pieces at the natural fissure (which are called by 
botanists the cotyledons), and dried in the sun; beyond a limited 
quantity of these, it was no object to me to obtain; what I partieu- 
larly wanted was a knowledge of the tree, and ripe vegetating seeds: 
those dried in the sun will never vegetate. I was told that it would 
be useless for me to go to the woods, as the trees had already been 
pillaged in all directions: this, however, did not deter me from trying ; 
and after three days' search, at some distance from the village, 1 
obtained about thirty fruits, each containing one seed and the germ of 
a plant. A few I preserved entire in spirits, the rest I planted in a 
box of earth at once, to prevent their perishing, as is the case with 
most large seeds, if not kept constantly excited. Those I sent to the 
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, grew well and at the present time 
plants of Cedron would be more easily obtained at the Royal Botanic 
Gardens, Kew, than in its native country. "Those I brought to the 
Botanic Garden, St. Ann's, are thriving well; some of the trees are 
now seven feet in height.” 
Dr, Linx. 
(From the * Literary Gazette.”) 
Science has sustained a great loss in the death of Dr. Link, Professor 
of Botany in the University of Berlin, and Director of the Royal Bo- 
tanie Garden of that city ; ; and those of our readers who, up to the 
present time, have been in the habit of reading his annual reports on 
the progress of botany, and his various recent contributions to that 
science, will marvel to know that he died in the eighty-second year of 
his age. His literary career extends back for more than half a century, 
his first botanical essay, consisting of some observations on the plants 
