EUCALYPTUS TREES. 585 
tia (including Candollea ) furnishes over 80; Thom- 
asia, with Lasiopetalum, together, 50. I instance all 
these as grateful plants, enduring hot winds, and 
yielding seeds in copiousness for easy growth. Again: 
Oxyloblum, Chorizema, and Gastrolobium (if con- 
sidered together as emanating from one general typic 
form) amount to 74, all beautiful, and some, especially 
the West Australian species, quite singular in foliage. 
Turning to genera, numerically large in species, 
from which a botanic garden can copiously select for 
its conservatories, I might adduce Begonia. Profes- 
sor Alph. de Candolle defines, by his recent masterly 
essay in the Prodromus, the characteristics, carefully 
elaborated, of not less than 380 species ; how far this 
number will be augmented, when once the mountain 
jungles of the whole of tropical Africa shall have been 
explored by phytographers or trained collectors, is 
quite beyond our surmise.* Even the infra - alpine 
regions of New Guinea and Borneo may add consid- 
erably to the number, and so, perhaps, even may yet 
Begonias be obtained from the unascended Mount Bel- 
lenden Ker of North-east Australia, into the jungle 
fortresses of which, as yet, no breach iscut. If we 
once possess any of these decorative plants, mostly 
well adapted for window - culture, we can propagate 
them with the utmost ease, even from a mere leaf. 
Such plants, irrespective of their geographic interest, 
are important also, when the functions of a botanic 
garden toward horticultural industries are to be con- 
sidered. The cultivator is glad to have fixed the bo- 
tanic names, and to know the respective native coun- 
tries of the different species, particularly when, as in 
*Dr. Hooker has since published 24 new Begoniz from equinoctial Africa, 
