BOTANICAL GARDEN OF FLORENCE 87 



now in use, one passes several closed gates, one with an 

 inscription, ''Cosmo Med. Dux FlorenticX II." Several iron 

 lamp-brackets overhang the sidewalk, attached high up on 

 the wall, which itself continues beyond the garden gate, 

 around the corner and along the Via Micheli southeastward 

 t< the Via Capponi, and then again back southwestward to 

 the church of Santa Annunziata, thus completely enclosing the 

 garden, for the church and Institute buildings close the re- 

 maining side of the rectangle. In late February, when I 

 visited the place, a fine show was made by the tops of a 

 group of well-laden orange trees which overhung the wall 

 near the garden gate. 



Entering the garden, one finds on his left a series of 

 old plant houses, wMth their walls and roofs only partly of 

 glass. To the right lie rectangular beds of the herbaceous 

 garden, each representing a family or order of plants and 

 ^vell provided with labels. Scattered about are a goodly 

 number of trees, some of them very large. Among the latter 

 were noticed : sev^eral fine magnolias, some very large ashes, 

 <i maple or two in bloom at the time, a Planera richardi 

 Mchx., four feet in diameter breast-high, with heavily 

 buttressed base; several good-sized yews; a Piuus excelsa, of 

 the Himalayas, eighteen inches in diameter; Piiiiis fortunei 

 eight inches with a fine display of the curious broad leaves 

 of this form; Abies Nordmauniana, fourteen inches at base; 

 and Ulmiis hitifoUa five feet in diameter. A Querciis suber, 

 as large as the last named elm, bore a label showing it to 

 have been planted in 1805. Several beeches, about two feet 

 In diameter, had been planted in 1829. A Ouercus Ilex, about 

 two feet in diameter had been planted in 1805, and a 

 Cupressus pyramidaUs, of the same size, had been planted 

 only five years later. Some fine camella hedges bore flower 

 buds at an advanced stage but were not in bloom, although 

 camelias in the open had been loaded with flowers a month 

 earlier at Punta Delgada in the Azores Islands. . A number 

 of large palms were thriving out of doors, as well as several 



