532 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, PJ20. 



and shrubby ornamental plants are distributed annually all over the 

 island, by steamer and railroad. The half shrubby "crotons" 

 {Codiaeum) , conspicuous for their brilliantly colored and variegated 

 leaves, are easily the favorites, and monstrous and unnatural as their 

 garish coloration might seem in the cloud-drenched mountains, they 

 are fairly in keeping with the scorching glare of the lowlands, where 

 they prosper amazingly. The plazas and small parks and the formal 

 gardens which front most of the inclosed villas, both city and sub- 

 urban, would indeed be dull without them. 



Hope Gardens are easily reached by a modern and well-equipped 

 electric street car line which runs out from Kingston (at sea level) 

 northeasterly over the dry dusty plain, past Halfway Tree (famous 

 for its huge " Tom Cringle " silk-cotton tree) to Papine, less than 

 a mile beyond the main entrance to the Gardens. So gentle is the 

 rise that the altitude reached (700 feet), though not great, seems 

 hardly credible. The ride has been through an area supporting a 

 strongly xerophilous vegetation, of which more than half of the 

 conspicuous scattered trees, including the mesquite (Prosopis juli- 

 flora) and the East Indian "woman tongue" {Albizzia lebbek) are 

 of foreign introduction. Of the native trees one of the most beauti- 

 ful, with clean firm trunk, dense well-rounded crown of small, dark, 

 glossy leaves, and beautiful clusters of lilac flowers, is the lignum- 

 vitae {Guaiacum officinale). Several terrestrial cacti of the genera 

 Cereus and Opuntia, which were abundant toward Kingston, are here 

 less common, but in the huge, flat-topped guango or "rain tree" 

 {Pithecolobium saman), widely introduced throughout the tropics, 

 will often be found a climbing cactus (Hylocereus triangularis), 

 sometimes in its profuse growth completely taking possession of the 

 trunk and main branches. The general character of the vegetation 

 is not prepossessing, for although the annual mean temperature here 

 is 76° there is a total rainfall of only 55 inches per year, and the im- 

 mediate landscape is usually parched in appearance. The high Blue 

 Mountains to the north drain the saturated northeast trade winds, 

 and the breezes from the south bring little moisture. 



The transition to the beautiful planting within the gardens is, 

 therefore, abrupt. Two hundred acres are included in the tract, 

 the inner portion being laid out as a botanical garden and experi- 

 mental station. Leaving the main highway to Papine and Gordon- 

 town, over which trudge daily hundreds of Negro market women 

 bearing heavy head loads of produce raised 10, 15, or even 20 miles 

 away in the mountains, the driveway within the gardens leads for 

 some distance through a rather dense ornamental plantation of 

 shrubs, native and exotic, with clumps of many different kinds of 

 cacti interspersed. Emerging from this the full beauty of the gar- 

 dens comes upon one: The wide expanse of well-kept lawns, the 



