SOME BOTANIC GARDENS ABROAD. 163 



then superinteendeiit, ]\Ir. Alexander Moon, laid out part of the 

 present garden, which has since been enlarged and improved by 

 his successors. 



The garden comprises an area of over 14-0 acres. As in all 

 British Colonial gardens an attem])t has been made to combine 

 a scientitic collection of living plant specimens with a park ar- 

 rangement. Broad lawns intersected by irregular roads, and 

 (l()tt(^d with clum])s of trees and shrubs make a fine landscape 

 effect, especially in a tropical climate where the vegetation can 

 luxuriate almost at will, but it does not facilitate the handling of 

 the garden or make it easy to find specimens. This last was 

 made the more difficult l)y the arrangement introduced by the 

 former director of the garden, who wanted to co])y nature as 

 uiucli as possible and therefore planted trees and shrul)s promis- 

 cuously, giving the general appearance of the priuicval jungle, 

 l)ut making; it extremely difficult to obtain a general and clear im- 

 pression of the distribution of ])lants in the garden. The present 

 director is gradually changing this state of affairs into a more 

 systematic arrangement. The visiting student of tro})ical botany 

 w]i(» wishes to get a general comprehensive view of the flora must 

 s})end considerable time at Peradeniya, while in gardens ar- 

 ranged like that at Ruitenzovg hp can in a very short period see 

 and learn much more about the natural relationship of genera 

 au<l orders. I found that for my special purpose — economic 

 botany — the Singapore gardens were a more suitable place for 

 study than either Buitenzorg or Peradeniya. Buitenzorg has 

 too uuiny specimens to permit a visitor to see the various eco- 

 nomic ])lants side by side, while at Peradeniya the arrangement 

 referred to makes it diffictilt to find anything at all. 



One oreat advantage of the Peradeniya gardens is that the 

 roads are wide and built as drive-ways permitting the casual vis- 

 itor with only an hour or two at his disposal to see all the various 

 ])arts of the garden. Entering the garden by the main entrance 

 from the road to Ivandy, the ancient capital of Ceylon, we notice 

 to the left a number of gigantic specimens of F/c?/.s rlrf^fica. the 

 Assam rubber, which is quite extensively cultivated in parts of 



