REPORT ON.THE ROYAL GARDENS AT KEW. 271 
have caused the labours of the past year to be unusually heavy: On 
the other hand, their results have been beyond all proportion remune+ 
rative; for the Colonial collections of vegetable products, especially 
the superb series of timbers and ornamental woods presented to us 
from the International. Exhibition, far more than repay the services we 
were enabled to render to that undertaking. 
I. BOTANIC GARDEN. 
No new buildings have been erected during the past year; but seven 
of our largest Tropical and Temperate houses have been rearranged, 
some of them twice, as follows :— 
l. The Architectural Hothouse near the grand entrance, which, 
though fitted with a costly stove-heating apparatus, has hitherto been 
used as a greenhouse for colonial trees and shrubs. Its contents having 
been transferred to the Winter Garden, are replaced by our Aroids and 
other tropical large-leaved climbers, whose singular habit, magnificent 
foliage, and other peculiarities, not only render them eminently adapted 
to this house, but are such as to arrest the attention of visitors on en- 
tering the Gardens. | 
2. The Old Orangery, long condemned as utterly unsuited to the 
cultivation of plants, has also been eleared, and its contents transferred 
the Winter Garden. ; 
8. The Palm-house-—Here a large number of Palms and other 
Plants of temperate climates, better suited to the Winter Garden, had 
long been accommodated, and had attained a great size. Their remo- 
val necessitated a complete rearrangement of all the other tubbed and 
Potted plants, and occupied five months ; it also gave an opportunity 
for disposing differently the plants in the wings, which are now place 
in two parallel lines, with an intermediate central walk. 
4. The Ornamental Greenhouse, No. 10, has been relieved of its 
larger inmates, especially the Australian Acacias, ete., which are now 
Placed in the Winter Garden, | Thus increased accommodation is gained 
for flowering-plants. : : 
5. The Stovehouses Nos. 19 and 21, which formerly contained chiefly 
Orchids, and the Aroids, etc., now grou ed in No. 1, have both been 
twice filled and emptied. They are eminently adapted to our yearly in- 
creasing collection of tender small Palms and Cycads, etc., from our 
‘ast Indian possessions, and West Indian and West African colonies. 
