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XXXIII—SOME GARDENS AND PARKS IN 8S. EUROPE. 
W. J. Bran. 
Four years ago at the desire of the Director I visited a number 
of gardens and -parks in Central Europe, and some notes on that 
journey appeared in the Kew Bulletin for 1908, p. 387. During 
April of the present year I was directed to make a journey with 
similar objects in Italy and Dalmatia. On this the following notes 
re based :— 
La Morro.a. 
As an only slightly lengthened journey was involved it appeared 
desirable to reach Italy by way of the French Riviera, and thus 
was enabled to devote four days to visiting the famous gardens at 
Hyéres, Villa Thuret and Eilen Roc (at Antibes), Monte Carlo 
and La Mortola. <A fortnight or three weeks might very profitably 
be spent on the seaboard between Marseilles and Genoa, but if there 
were only time to visit a single garden that garden should be La Mor- 
tola. There are of course finer individual specimens of certain 
plants to be found in other gardens, but nowhere is there such 
wealth and variety and such general excellence as at La Mortola. 
and beauty. It would be too long a task to do more than speak in 
general terms of the collection. To one whose experience has been 
confined to northern gardens almost every step at La Mortola 
reveals some striking or unfamiliar plant, perhaps one he has hitherto 
only known as a weakling in a pot growing in all its natural luxu- 
riance, many altogether new and unfamiliar to him. 
Mention of a few of the plants in flower on April 4th will give 
some idea of the diversity of the collection here: Aloe Hanburyana 
with crowds of brilliant red spikes, 4. plicatilis, coral red, A. Mar- 
lothii, rich crimson and orange, A. rubro-violacea ; Dimorphotheca 
aurantiaca, Echium fastuosum, Gnidia carinata (yellow), Grevillea 
vestita (white), G. Thelemanniana (scarlet); Mesembryanthemum 
edule, M. atroviolaceum (with lustrous purplish-violet flowers), 
Sutherlandia frutescens, Calodendron capense, Fuchsia arborescens, 
Leptosyne gigantea (yellow, and very showy on walls), Berckheya 
grandiflora (a shrubby composite, with bright yellow heads 3 to 
4 inches across), Wigandia caracasana(knownin England as a plant for 
sub-tropical bedding, here asmall tree carrying noble panicles of purple 
