398 



stems 



and 20 in, or so in girth. Returning towards the town by another 

 route, one may traverse the banks of the Carola see, a charming 

 lake with undulating, curving banks, and a prettily disposed 

 marginal vegetation, amongst which the silvery-leaved Elaeagnus 

 orientals was a most telling feature in June, surpassing any 

 willow in whiteness. 



The journey on to Prague was taken in the evening. 



i 



Prague. June 12. 



There is not much of unusual interest to the botanist and 

 connoisseur of trees in Prague, but before going on to Vienna I 

 paid a visit to the chief open space of the city, the Karls Platz. 

 The grounds here are very pleasant, with lawn and trees disposed 

 informally. Although considerably south of Berlin the trees used 

 are the same as those common in the gardens of North Germany 

 and Britain, and planters rely on such things as oaks, Ailanthns, 

 black walnut, elms, Eobinia and the like. To the foreigner, the 

 chief object of interest in the Karls Platz is a statue of Benedict 

 Roezl, the famous plant-collecter in Mexico and Tropical South 

 America. He was born in 1824, and died at Prague in 1885, 

 He is here vigorously portrayed in collector's costume, examining 

 an orchid flower. One would search in vain the public gardens 

 and open spaces of this country for a statue of any plant collector. 

 Yet it is easy to recall the names of at least half-a-dozen men 

 some of them Kew men — who have as great a claim to the 

 gratitude and remembrance of posteritv as Benedict Roe?L 





Vienna Botanic Garden. June 13. 



The Botanic Garden of Vienna, which is really an adjunct to 

 the University, is now deeply buried in streets and houses. 

 Although cramped for room like so many of its class, it contains 

 many features of interest. There are two fine female specimens 

 of the maidenhair tree with the characteristic pendulous branches. 

 hear the entrance from the Renneweg are a fine Ulmus glabra 

 and a magnificent Platanus acerifolia. The garden also contains 

 two other notable planes— the true P. orientals and P. orientally 

 var. mmlaris, the latter with very deeply-lobed leaves. The 

 Kentucky coffee tree (Gymnocladus canadensis), which I found 

 so splendidly developed in many other gardens of Central Europe, 

 is represented here by several good trees. The true Gleclitschia 

 casptca of Desfontaine, a tree with large oblong leaflets, and quite 

 Oistmct trom the form of G. triacanthos frequently found under 

 mat name, is here a low-branching unarmed tree, with a trunk 

 nearly 8 ft. in girth at the base. 



Many of the trees in the Vienna gardens showed the influence 



1 nnn°l! Umn i e o Cl \ mate b ? *** nne development, which was not 

 ffi' at ? erhn or even as far south as Prague. Thus. 

 Uadtashs tmctomt (of which there is a goo, I specimen) had 



inT.wT ^f Ht free,i " m > which at Kew happens scarcely once 

 in a decade. Pterocarya caucaska, a large sheading tree with 



