THE BOTANICAL GARDENS OF CEYLON 195 



stations, five in number, are established in parts of the island where 

 differences in climate furnish altered conditions for plant life. 



The Peradeniya garden is in the wet zone, or area of natural rain 

 forest, at an altitude of 1,600 feet above the sea. With an annual 

 precipitation of about 90 inches and a mean temperature of 75° 

 Fahrenheit there are furnished the necessary conditions for luxuriant 

 plant growth. A " dry season," extending through February, March 

 and April, limits the growth of air plants hanging from trees, so that 

 in this respect Peradeniya is not so interesting as Buitenzorg, in Java. 

 The " dry season " is, however, not long enough to interfere with the 

 growth of most plants and nearly all of the trees retain their leaves 

 through this period. It is quite otherwise in the arid districts of 

 northern Ceylon, where a monsoon forest with a considerable number 

 of deciduous trees is the natural plant formation. Peradeniya, though 

 rather too cool for cocoanuts or Para rubber, has a climate well suited 

 to Castilloa rubber and to tea and chocolate, while palms of nearly all 

 kinds thrive to perfection. 



The garden was not originally laid out according to any system of 

 plant classification, but was rather a beautiful park in which trees were 

 planted for landscape effect. Now, however, the director, 2 is develop- 

 ing the garden according to systematic plans and making definite 

 groups of plant families. Thus there are at present well-arranged 

 plots devoted to palms, others to screw pines, others to cycads. It will 

 necessarily be many years before the new plan can be fully carried out, 

 for most of the plants in a tropical garden are trees. Indeed, the 

 herbaceous garden forms but a small part of the whole. 



Here, as in any first-class garden of the tropics, much is very new 

 and strange to the botanist from temperate climes. Palms, screw- 

 pines, giant bamboos, orchids and tree ferns, which he has known 

 hitherto only from books or from the puny specimens of the plant 

 house, become the commonplaces of every-day life. The sight of trees 

 of the Composite family, Verbena family and many other groups repre- 

 sented at home only by herbs opens the eyes to some of the real wonders 

 of tropical plant life. An interesting example is that of the " potato 

 tree " belonging to the nightshade family. It does not produce 

 potatoes, but its flower resembles that of a potato very much enlarged. 

 At home we think of the nightshade family including only herbs and 

 vines, but in the tropics it includes trees as large as our ordinary 

 shade trees, such as elm and maple. 



Nearly every kind of plant will grow at Peradeniya ; tropical and 

 sub-tropical plants very well indeed; temperate plants for the most 

 part indifferently well. The latter are, however, taken care of at the 

 mountain garden at Hakgala where the higher altitude (5,500 feet) 



2 John C. Willis, M.A. (Camb.), FL.S. 



