1915] 



HILL BOTANIC GARDENS 221 



culents, bulbous plants, halophytes, bog and water plants, and 

 the like, and if possible there should also be a definite economic 

 and medicinal garden. Plant houses should also be set apart 

 for economic plants where such as are of definite medical and 

 economic values may be studied in connection with their 

 products displayed in the museums. 



The exact determination of plants of economic value, es- 

 pecially in connection with the vegetation of the tropics, is a 

 matter of such importance that the necessity of a well- 

 furnished herbarium and museum, in connection with a botanic 

 garden of any pretension, needs no demonstration. With the 

 aid of the herbarium, also the correct determination of all 

 plants cultivated in a botanic garden should be ensured. 



Just as necessary for the complete botanical establishment 

 is the possession of a laboratory both for the examination and 

 analysis of plants, and also for the study of such problems in 

 mycology, plant physiology, plant hybridization, etc., as can 

 be studied nowhere at greater advantage than in a botanic 

 garden. 



A somewhat unexpected exhibition in a botanic garden is 

 an arrangement of fossil plants in the open, such as may be 

 seen in the Breslau Botanic Garden, 1 where the coal measure 

 series of strata have been built up and characteristic fossil 

 plants have been arranged to form a kind of fossil rock- 

 garden. Such an exhibition as this in close connection with 

 the collection of living plants, is probably of greater educa- 

 tional value than a similar display would be within the four 

 walls of a museum and may be assumed to justify its forma- 

 tion. 



How numerous are the possibilities of arrangement in the 

 modern botanic garden has been fully realized by the en- 

 lightened botanists of the present day. The difficulty, how- 

 ever, which is being somewhat acutely felt in many institu- 

 tions, is that of lack of space, not only for the vast numbers 

 of new plants being introduced to cultivation — particularly 

 from China — but also for new and important developments 



1 Goppert, H. R. Der Konigliche Garten der Universitat Breslau, Fiihrer. 

 1875. 



