THE BOTANICAL GARDENS OF CEYLON 



205 



arid lands are practically treeless, but in Ceylon the forest is the natural 

 plant formation even in dry areas. 



With all of the different floras to be seen in the various parts of 

 the island a botanist may get a good idea of the tropical world in a 

 short time and with slight expense. The director of the gardens and 

 his staff are anxious to have scientific visitors, not only botanists, but 

 zoologists and geologists as well. Two rooms at the government Eest 

 House (a kind of hotel) are reserved for scientific visitors and no charge 

 is made for lodging, although, of course, table board must be paid for. 

 The cost of living will be found to be not more than in other tropical 

 countries with fewer advantages for study. 



Ceylon has never attracted a great number of students, but a con- 

 siderable amount of valuable work has been done there. Haeckel cer- 

 tainly obtained many of his philosophical ideas of the plant and animal 

 worlds during his visit to the island. Modern science and philosophy 

 owe much to the influence of Ceylon on his writings. But Haeckel's 

 zoological collections were also valuable, and the collections of others 

 at later times have added much to the world's store of knowledge in 

 regard to tropical life. On the side of botany probably the name which 

 is oftenest associated with Ceylon is that of the late H. Marshall Ward, 

 who as a young man spent two years on the island studying the coffee 

 disease. Although he worked out the etiology of the disease and the 

 life history of the parasite, he was unable to devise a method of pre- 

 vention. Henry Trimen, who was director of the gardens at Pera- 

 deniya for sixteen years, published the " Flora of Ceylon," which was 

 completed by Sir Joseph Hooker in 1900, after the death of Trimen. 

 It is interesting to note that Hooker had himself collected plants in 

 Ceylon fifty- three years before. Of recent publications the work of 

 Mr. Willis, the director, on a curious family of plants, the Podosto- 



Fig. 9. Giant Bamboos. Photograph by Macinillan kindly furnished by the director. 



