Botanical Collections, 251 



highly curious, and deserving of the attention of those who receive seeds of 

 this family from the Cape, and will either dissect them, or cause them to 

 germinate ; and we particularly recommend to those botanists who interest 

 themselves with physiological researches at the Cape, to study this point 

 there, and to send to this country as many dried specimens and fruits of the 

 whole order as they can collect. 



Artificial plants. — M. Robillard d'Argentelles, during a residence of 

 twenty-four years in the Isle of France, has been engaged in forming a 

 collection of models, on a new plan, of vegetables difficult to be preserved. 

 They have been exhibited to the Institute of France, and are said to repre- 

 sent the objects intended with scrupulous fidelity, both as^to form and 

 colour. .i.ui-.i.juvii ,^^^cyH\^i xi-> vj -i'v 



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Japanese Plants and Seeds At the distributidft of ^<5zes^ven by the 



Botanical Society of Gand, M. Van Hultem, the president, made a speech, 

 the following passages of which will be read with interest : — 

 , Each year brings us new vegetable productions. You may traverse the 

 gardens of France and England to see if any flowers and plants are there 

 which we have not in our collections. The East Indies, Brazil, and South 

 -America, transmit to us from time to time, plants, trees, and shrubs, little 

 known in our climates ; and if we throw a glance over the last fifty years, 

 how many beautiful shrubs and flowers now enrich our gardens, the existence 

 of which we scarcely then knew ! 



The Ginkgo biloba of Japan, the Fuschia coccinea of Chili, the Hortensia 

 of China, the numerous varieties of Camellia of Japan, the beautiful Azalea: 

 of the East Indies, the arborescent Pceonice of China, the Pyrus and Mespilus 

 japonica, the Ferraria pavonia of Mexico, the Cactus alatus and speciosus of 

 Peru, the Melaleuca and Metrosideros of New Holland, and a great number 

 of others, have become almost as common as indigenous plants. 



There is yet an island, at a great distance, and of difficult access, which 

 contains a great number of trees and shrubs, the culture of which, as far as 

 climate goes, would be easy in our country. Of these, scarcely more than 

 ten or twelve shrubs have come to us. You will immediately perceive that 

 I speak of Japan, where the inhabitants of our kingdom are admitted, and 

 where we have a factory. These circumstances, the beauty of the shrubs 

 which we possess, and the description of a great number of others which 

 Thunberg has given us, induced us about eight years ago to make a list of 

 the most beautiful plants of this remote land. His Excellency M. Falck, 

 then minister of the colonies, sent an order to Japan, and, in 1826, we 

 received a letter from Dr Siebold, in which he promised us to collect and send 

 over the plants and seeds which we wished to have. This botanist has kept 

 his word, and, a few months since, a ship, with fifteen cases of plants and 

 seeds, arrived at Anvers ; but all the plants had perished in this long voyage, 

 and we only received a part of the seeds of about 200 plants, trees, and 

 shrubs. These seeds have been intrusted to the care of our excellent 

 cultivator, Mossche, chief gardener of the garden of the University, and our 

 colleague, M. Louis Papelen, a zealous cultivator of foreign plants. It is 

 from their combined care that Europe may expect one day to acquire a 

 considerable number of the plants of Japan. — Moniteur Universe!, 26th 

 June, 1830. 



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