A DAY AT KEW GARDENS. 



under the direction of Dr. William Darlington, of this State. The British 

 Government have given facilities of transport for everything going to Kew. The 

 elder Mr. Cunard came up for a friendly shake of the hand, and we were intro- 

 duced, to him as "My kind friend who transports for me without any charge 

 whatever." 



To a commercial nation, ready to seize upon every article that can be turned to 

 economic account in manufactures, this scheme has proved of immense import- 

 ance ; textile fibres, gums, resins, dyestuffs, starches, oils, woods, tannins, drugs, 

 food for man, basket-work, all the products of straws and grasses are assembled. 

 Let us listen to Sir William's fluent talk, which cannot dwell long on anything, 

 so numerous are the objects we have to view. 



Here are the fruits of the yellow water-lily, nuphar lutea; the leaves are said to 

 be styptic ; the flowers have a brandy-like smell, and the pistil is shaped like a 

 flask, whence the name of "Brandy-bottle." Next is the poppy family. Six 

 millions and a half pounds of opium are annually bought up as a source of re- 

 venue to the East India Company. Little more than one hundred thousand pounds 

 is required for England per annum, but it is calculated that twenty millions of pounds 

 are annually consumed by mankind. You see all the processes of manufacture in 

 the plant, the pictures, the implements, and the article in all its stages. — Horse- 

 radish-tree family, order moringacese. This natural order, of doubtful position, is 

 now generally placed near the violet family; it is confined to one genus, moriuga. 

 Ben-oil, pods and seeds of moringa pterygosperma ; an Indian tree, cultivated in 

 Jamaica, Its pure fixed oil is much used by perfumers on account of its not 

 easily becoming rancid, and by watchmakers, because it does not freeze. The 

 roots have exactly the flavor of horseradish ; pods used in curries, — Manna of 

 Mount Sinai ; it is an exudation from tamarisk mamifera, occasioned by an insect, 

 a species of coccus which inhabits the shrub, and this manna consists wholly of 

 pure mucilaginous sugar, — Here is a native shoe-blacking ! among the cottons ; 

 the beautiful flowers of Hibiscus Rosa-Sinensis are used by the Chinese to blacken 

 their eyebrows and their shoes. Soapwort, saponaria officinalis ; bruised and 

 agitated in water, it raises a lather like soap, and may be used as a substitute for 

 it. Cotton specimens of every description, and its manufactures. Spun to the 

 fineness of eleven hundred and forty-five miles per pound, it is too fine for any- 

 thing but to be looked at. You are an American, and want to see something new. 

 — This is the Boab, or monkey-bread fruit, adansonia digitata; the product of one 

 of the most remarkable trees in the world. The wood is pale, light-colored, and 

 so soft that in Abyssinia the wild bees perforate and lodge their honey in the 

 trunk, which honey is considered the best in the country. On the west coast, its 

 trunks are hollowed by the natives, and their dead deposited therein, where they 

 become mummies. — Xuts of the Kola, sterculia acuminata, Africa and West 

 Indies ; they have a pleasant, aromatic taste, and are much esteemed by the 

 negroes as promoting digestion ; they also prevent sleep, and are used by the 

 native watchmen to keep themselves awake. Bags of the sterculia villosa 



