July 1891.] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 183 



the ordinary low level of the forest. On part of one side the 

 view is open to the river. Very broad walks kept in perfect 

 order traverse the whole of this large space, so that there, as 

 nowhere else in that densely- wooded country, one can enjoy 

 the luxury of a walk. The palms were spared when the rest 

 of the trees were felled, and these now stand in separate 

 beauty, vying with each other for the admiration of the 

 visitor. Many others have grown from seed around them, 

 and there has been besides a large importation of coco-nut 

 trees, or rather of coco-nuts which are now trees in all their 

 feathered elegance. The greater part of the space occupied 

 by these palms, being much too large to keep as a garden, is 

 covered by native low-growing bush, among which many 

 interesting things may be picked out, and all along the 

 margin of the enclosing forest are countless plants of beauty 

 either for flower or leaf, material for endless botanising. 

 Nothing impressed me more in Guiana than the amazing 

 number of finely-shaped and finely-coloured leaves, a con- 

 siderable proportion of them being strikingly beautiful. The 

 leaf of the Calladium and that of the Maranta are equally 

 lovely, though they are of totally different types. I used to 

 think that a collection of fifty or a hundred of the finest 

 leaves would not yield in interest, at least in artistic interest, 

 to any other botanical collection, and I regret that I did not 

 make an attempt to form one. Passing from the more re- 

 mote grounds to the garden proper, its beauty lay in the 

 variety of fiowering shrubs and foliage plants. A stranger 

 fresh from Scotland was struck by the absence of small 

 herbaceous plants, which have hardly any native representa- 

 tives there, and when imported from a temperate climate will 

 not grow. But to make up for the want of these, there was a 

 great profusion of rare and beautiful things arranged so as to 

 show them off to the greatest advantage. Of flowering 

 plants there were Hibiscus rosa-sinensis (single and double) ; 

 H. magnifica, schizopetalon, liliifiorus, hirsutus and tiliaceus ; 

 Allamanda cathartica and neriifolia ; Passijlora coccinea, 

 corifolia (yielding the succulent and savory Semi too fruit), 

 and fcetida ; Ixoras ; Jasminium samhac, and two or three 

 other kinds; Duranta Ellisia, and the lovely white-flowered 

 Pluvieria acutifolia (?). Of foliage plants there were some 

 47 different kinds of Crotons, a great variety of Dracaenas, 



