PREFACE. WNDSCAPB 



ARCH. 

 LIBRARY 



THE object of the present Hand-list as with the rest of 

 the series is, in the first place, to show what species are 

 actually grown at Kew, and in the next to reduce, if 

 possible, the nomenclature in use in gardens to something 

 like a standard. 



In the earlier Botanic Gardens the collections consisted 

 necessarily entirely of plants grown in the open air. 

 "Indoor cultivation" did not commence till about the 

 middle of the seventeenth century. The greenhouse 

 and hothouse in the Chelsea Botanic Gardens were 

 probably amongst the earliest erected in this country. 



The cultivation of herbaceous plants in the open air, or 

 with merely winter shelter in frames, still remains one of 

 the most important features of Botanic Garden work; Of 

 the total number of species cultivated at Kew probably 

 not less than a quarter are grown in this way. 



The first collection of herbaceous plants at Kew was 

 formed by William Aiton, who was engaged by the 

 Dowager Princess of Wales to establish a Botanic, or as it 

 was then called, a Physic Garden. It was began in 1760 

 and occupied about an acre of the southern part of the 

 ic G rden T!K^ site which it occupied is 

 immediately souih 01 tne Tempio 01 me Sun. It Wc,s 

 arranged on the Linnean system. According to an 

 enumeration made by Mr. John Smith, the first curator 

 of that name, in " Hill's Hortus Kewensis, published 

 10588 462 fl 



