CH. VII] PLANT LIFE IN THE TROPICS. ACCLIMATISATION 31 



brought in and made to grow satisfactorily there, or " acclima- 

 tised," as it is called. 



Acclimatisation of plants in the tropics is very old. It 

 has been very vigorously prosecuted, and with great success, 

 from the first settlements there of Europeans, the Portuguese 

 having been especially active in this respect. Plants were very 

 early carried from the New World especially the West Indies 

 to the Old, and vice versa. Coffee was introduced to America, 

 it is said, by Louis XIV of France, who sent a ship out to Hayti 

 with a single plant on board. On the way the water supply ran 

 short, and the captain heroically shared his own water with the 

 plant, and brought it successfully to the West Indies. It is said 

 that the mangoes in some of the West Indian islands owe their 

 introduction to the capture of a French warship, which was 

 taking them to one of the French islands. A vast amount of 

 acclimatisation has gone on, and in many cases the acclimatised 

 plants have formed the basis of successful industries in their 

 adopted homes, e.g. ginger (East Indian) in Jamaica, tea 

 (Chinese and N. Indian), cinchona and cacao (South American) 

 in Ceylon, rubber (South American) in Ceylon and Malaya. 

 Not only have useful plants been acclimatised, but also innumer- 

 able weeds, usually carried unintentionally in packages of seeds, 

 etc. Ceylon has quite a large flora of such weeds, which are 

 almost all Mexican or West Indian, the reason apparently being 

 that Ceylon being a forest-clad country had no weeds of its own 

 which could take their place in the cleared ground, so that those 

 introduced from open countries had a clear field. 



With the advent to the tropics of the Dutch, and later of 

 the English, the acclimatisation of plants was put upon a 

 scientific and systematic footing, Botanic Gardens being opened 

 in most of the tropical possessions for the express purpose, 

 among others, of introducing, and trying experiments with, the 

 plants of other countries. The history of the Ceylon gardens, 

 perhaps the most successful of all in the British colonies, will 

 illustrate the general history of all. The famous gardens of 

 Peradeniya, near Kandy, in the central province of Ceylon, were 

 opened in their present site in 1821. Concerned until about 

 1850 mainly with the investigation of the wild flora of the 



