EXHIBITION OP TULIPS AT MANCHESTER, 1851. 185 



tural history, especially zoology and botany. The hitherto very in- 

 significant zoological museum of the university was considerably en- 

 larged during his rectorship; for instance, the indigenous birds of 

 Valencia, especially the numerous water-birds of the Albufera Sea, 

 have been added, and form a very interesting collection. The director 

 is Professor Don Ignatio Vidal, "who is said to be a good zoologist. 

 But Carbonell's real hobby is the botanic garden. He has removed, 

 somewhat arbitrarily, the old person/iel,' with the exception of D. Jose 

 Piscueta, Professor of Botany, who was garden-director in 1844, and 

 continues so still, though, of course, only nominally ; and he has 

 attached to it a clever, scientific French gardener, M. Jean Eobillard, 

 a zealous young man ; and as the public funds were too insignificant to 

 restore and support the garden, he has contributed large sums out of 

 his own means. M. Robillard has p n aced himself in communication 

 with the leading gardens in Europe, and will be able, under the powerful 

 patronage of Carbonell, to double and treble the number of plants in a 

 short time. If we take into account the excellence of the climate of 

 Valencia — in which New Holland and Cape plants, as well as many 

 plants of tropical countries, thrive in the open ground — the superiority 

 of the soil, the abundant supply of water, the continually moist and 

 never-too-hot air — it must be admitted that we have here a combination 

 of all the conditions required for a grand botanic establishment ; and 

 such the Valencia garden will become, if Carbonell's life is spared and 

 his rectorship continued. I will, in conclusion, specify some of the 

 rarities in the garden ; rarities, at least, as concern the individual 

 specimens. The large water basin is filled with tropical aquatics, such 

 as several plant*, of Nelumbium speciosum in full bloom at the time 

 I speak of (August), and remarkable on account of the great size 

 of the flowers and leaves. In the open air grow small trees of Gle- 

 ditschia caspica, the stem of which is armed with compound spines a 

 span long; Parkinsoniaaculeata ; Araucaria excelsaand imbricata ; and 

 a splendid specimen of Yucca filamentosa, with a stem eight feet high 

 and nearly one foot thick. The Parkinsonia is a layer from an old large 

 tree, which was ignorantly cut down by the Canon Cairascota, formerly 

 director of the agronomical garden, now united with the botanic garden. 

 The Chamaerops humilis, which so much astonished me in 1844, is 

 fortunately still in existence, and it measures nearly twenty feet in 

 height. The proper "botanical school 1 ' remains still a Linnsean 

 arrangement, but it is intended to put it in order according to the 

 natural system. May the Valencia garden continue its progress 

 towards perfection, and serve as a praiseworthy pattern of imitation for 

 all the other botanical establishments in Spain ! — Hooker's Journal of 

 BoUuu). 



THE EXHIBITION OF TULIPS AT MANCHESTER, 1851. 



BY 1>A11L. 



The readers of the Flohicultukal Cabinet will remember that in 

 the July number of last year, I gave a report of the northern exhibi- 



