October 17, 18613. ] 



JOUKNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



311 



WEEKLY CALENDAR. 



THE DUBLIN BOTANIC GARDENS.- 



TUTNITY COLLEGE. 



-No. 2. 



'\T2N were the ncwly-arrivcd 

 ^dsitol• to Dublin, fii mute 

 for Glasnc^•in, to be blind- 

 folded and taken to the 

 gardens of Trinity College, 

 judging from the vast mun- 

 ber and the rarity of the plants there eollected he might 

 reasonably suppose himself upon the banks of the Tolka. 

 The Trinity College garden is Glasneviu over again, but 

 uttered in another language, the plants, despite tbe excel- 

 lence of the Glasne\in collection, being to a very consider- 

 able degree another set entirely. Many hundreds of species 

 of coiu'se are to be found in either garden, but each at the 

 same time lias its specialities. This may be accounted for, 

 perhaps, in the case of Trinity College, bj' the reqtdrement 

 that a livuig sj)ecimen of every natui'al order of plants, in 

 blossom if possible, shall be ready for the students at any 

 and every season of the year — a requirement sufficient, iu 

 truth, to try the sliill and patience of even such a curator 

 as Mr. Bain. \Vlien Napoleon was upon a campaign, it 

 is said that he required his cook to have a hot roast 

 chicken for ever in readiness, so that at any and every 

 horn- of the day and night, and in whatever cii-cumstauces 

 he might be placed, still his favourite dish shoidd be ready 

 for serving up. Somctliing lilce tliis. but to satisfy an 

 intellectual instead of a physical appetite, seems to be the 

 care of the Superintendent of the Trinity College garden, 

 and it is but smiple justice to say that he acts, as nearly 

 as can be, to the demand. The quantity of plants here 

 crowded together is incretUble. There seems scarcely room 

 to squeeze in another, having proper care to leave access 

 to the sun and air. Old things and new stand side by 

 side, almost as closely as pictiu-es in a first-class gallery, 

 and every now and then a poor relation gets, as might be 

 expected, jostled out, and is compelled to take up its 

 lodging on the footpath. The oddest instance of tliis was 

 a plant of Samphire, Critluuum maiitiniiun, old, tough, 

 and woody, among the gravel, yet covered with flowers 

 and fruit ! So extraordinary a change of location is seldom 

 found possible with a maritime plant. From sea-washed 

 rocks, wetted by the spray of every tide, to an arid path, 

 is about as remote an extreme as could be thought of. 



Much of the charm of Trinity College garden is no doubt 

 referable to the bland conditions imder which the plants 

 exist, just as at Glasnevin, at Beaumaris, in South Devon, 

 &o. A delicious cHmate, though no doubt \\dth its draw- 

 backs, enables many plants to thrive in a way seldom 

 seen in the corresponding latitude in England. Here, for 

 instance, against the boundary-wall are Eerberis fascicu- 

 laris 12 feet high, mth a stem 3 inches thick, and superb 



No. 288.— Vol. E., Nbw Sbkibs, 



masses of foliage tluit roll out like Ivy ; Bignonia radicans 

 in full flower : and also in blossom Paliurus Spina-Chriati, 

 the plant used, in all likelihood, for the crown of thorns. 

 It is intensely absurd to depict the crown, as painters often 

 do, as if made of the Craliegus crus-galli, representing it 

 with some ten or twelve spines as long as the finger. In the 

 PaliiU'us tve have slim and llexible branchlets admirably 

 adapted for twisting into a chaplet, and at the axil of every 

 leaf is a little brown spine, resembling the lower half of the 

 linest and sharpest needle, a spine pointing every w.ay, so 

 that the punctures would be at once acute, and incessant, 



: and certain upon eveiy side. The flowers are small, 

 pale but decided yellow, in form like little stars, and itro 

 produced in leafy racemes at the ends of branchlets that 



I are mostly -svithout spines. The whole of the upper por- 



■ tion of the plant, from 10 to 12 feet above the ground, 



was, at the end of September, gay with them in abundance. 



The lawn, like the wall, is occupied by shrubs and trees 



I of the highest interest. Nearly the first one seen is 

 Ai-butus audraehne, superb in foliage, and with plenty of 

 yomig berries, the cinnamon-coloiu'ed bark peeling oif the 

 trimk edgewa.ys, and giving the latter a very odd appear- 

 ance. Above a mass of magnificent compound leaves, 

 each large enough to cover a moderate-sized dinner-tiible, 

 we see, not far ofl', the gi'and creamy inflorescence of the 

 Aralia japonica : on the other side is Garrya elliptica, 

 li feet liigh, and giving ample sign in its gi-ey catkins of 

 the flowery triiunph it will have in reacliness for New 

 Year's-day. The great pendulous racemes of the Garrya 

 form one of the handsomest possible ornaments for an 

 epergne iu the depth of winter, and gardeners «'ho have to 

 supply such ornaments would do well to look after its 

 cultm-e. Of coiu'se it is only the male plant that should 

 be gi-own for this purpose. The female, though in its 

 native coimtry decorated with pui'ple hemes, is of no use 

 in England except as a soiu'ce of seed. 



Interspersed among the trees are some gi'and suilruticose 

 plants, such as Bupleurum fruticosiun, wliich here makes a 

 cu'cular bush 5 feet high in the middle, and bearing, pro- 

 bably, five hundred yellow umbels ! A speciality worth 

 remark is Lobadium aromaticmn, a slrrub related to the 

 Sumachs, and, as would be expected, possessed of a power- 

 fully acrid juice. If a lirailch or t^dg be gathereil in- 

 cautiously, and there be any little scratch or wound upon 

 the hand by wliich the sap can enter the skin, a very 

 disagi'eeable and painful sore is soon occasioned. Near 

 it, and of very pretty aspect, is that great rarity Atrapliaxis 

 spinosa loaded with wliite flowers, and looldng, at the first 

 glance, like a Leptospermura or the Babingtoma. Accus- 

 tomed as we are in England to regard the Polygonacete as 

 weedy herbaceous plants, it is once again very delightful 

 to see how Nature can diversify her simplest types. A 

 hard, dry, almost mry slu-ub, with innumerable little 

 branchlets strildng out nearly at right angles, and loaded 

 with delicate little white flowers, is not exactly what we 

 should anticipate from studying a Dock or a Knot-(!rass. 

 Here, however, we mtty study it — an unmistakeable " va- 

 rionun reading," as classical scholars express it, of the 

 idea played forth in those rude and worthless ancient 



No. 890.— Vol. XXXIV., Old Seeim 



