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but resigned the office several years ago, when Mr Thiselton Dyer 
was appointed in his stead. The veteran botanist, however, though 
now over seventy years of age, comes a railway journey of over 
40 miles nearly every week-day to work in the Garden at his 
favourite subjects. Mr Thiselton Dyer and his able assistants 
worthily maintain the best traditions of Kew, and to-day the 
Gardens have deservedly a world-wide fame. 
It would be impossible to mention in detail all the interesting 
plants and flowers seen by the parties in their walk through the 
Gardens. The palm-house was found a veritable tropical forest in 
miniature. The monarch of the collection is a giant Fan Palm, 
Sabal Blackburniana, which was said to have been brought from 
the West Indies by Admiral Bligh in 1793. It has thus attained 
its century at Kew, and is still in vigorous health. In the tropical 
house every flower seemed more wonderful than its neighbour. 
On the occasion of our visit, one of the greatest rarieties seen 
was a plant with the name of Aristolochia Goldieana, which 
had an immense flower, 18 inches by 12 inches, fully expanded. 
It is rather curious that about the same time a great sensation was 
caused in Edinburgh by the flowering at the Botanic Garden 
for the first time of a similar plant of Aristolochia, which had been 
got by Professor Bayley Balfour from Kew. Another very interest- 
ing place was the Water-Lily House, where, besides a host: of other 
beautiful aquatic plants, the Royal Water Lily, Victoria regia, 
was seen in all its queenly splendour; its immense round leaves 
resting on the surface of the water, in a large tank, like gigantic 
embossed bronze trays, with the snow-white flowers floating in the 
spaces between them, in lovely contrast. There were also seen 
growing in great luxuriance, in the same house, a fine collection of 
“the Gourds of the World,” comprising many curious productions 
of nature, among which the ‘‘Snake Gourd,” with a screw-like 
body and the brightest flamingo-red colour, attracted special 
notice. 
As the parties passed along, attention was paid to the more 
remarkable trees in the grounds of the Botanic Garden, many of 
which are historical trees, or noteworthy examples of their kind. 
Much regret was expressed at the disappearance of the celebrated 
tree of Araucaria imbricata, which formerly stood on the lawn near 
the large conservatory, and was well known to every arborist who 
had visited Kew. It was one of the five original plants which 
Archibald Menzies introduced from Chili in 1793, and which had 
