106 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
ductions of this country and of Dalmatia, where he resided 
for many years. The other, Dr Biasoletti, an apothecary, 
is perhaps already known to you as an algeelogist, to which 
branch of science he is quite devoted, and has done much 
in investigating the Alge of the Adriatic. He also suc- 
ceeded in obtaining for the town of Trieste the gift of a 
small piece of ground as a Botanie garden about nine years 
ago, and has managed it ever since. Unfortunately the sun 
of £30 or £40 per annum is all that is allowed for keeping it 
up, so that even with the addition of what Dr Biasoletti 
spends upon it out of his own pocket, he can do little more 
than cultivate a collection of indigenous plants. Of these, 
however, and especially of Istrian and Dalmatian ones, t 
is a very perfect and interesting set. | : 
** We came to Venice from Trieste by steam, and my time 
bas of course been more occupied in sight-seeing than i 
Botany, nor could much of interest in the latter department 
be expected in a city consisting wholly of buildings, and of 
water. l made, however, an excursion to the islands that 
separate the lagunas from the sea, and got a few rather un- 
common plants; and the Botanic garden of Venice is quite a 
curiosity of itself, for with a very small extent of ground, | 
person to take interest in its welfare, and but little. com- 
munication with horticulturists or other gardens, there exists 
a very tolerable collection, kept in good order by. the two 
Rucchieris, father and son. I also visited Padua, that I 
might see Visiani and the Botanical garden. This is the 
oldest in Italy, and belongs to a decaying university; besides 
having been long under the care of a professor, who allowed 
it to fall into disorder; but his successor, Visiani, a young 
Dalmatian, with whom I had spent several pleasant mornings 
at the Vienna Meeting of Science, is an active and well 
informed person, particularly conversant with the Botany ol 
southern Europe. As may be expected, the. garden is n 
antique in its style; and the work of renovation, now proceet 
ing under the new professor’s auspices, rather increases tha 
_ diminishes, for the Present time, its confusion. The pri 
