PERSIMMON 95 



Persimmon fruit does not ripen in the Physic 

 Garden ; but most travellers in Mediterranean 

 countries have eaten Loquat tarts. The Bar- 

 bary Apes on the Rock of Gibraltar raid 

 gardens for ripe Loquats. 



The Physic Garden Loquat has no claim 

 to be an old one, but the Wistaria on the east 

 wall must not be forgotten. It is old, and 

 may have been brought from China by Robert 

 Fortune ; but insignificant when compared 

 with the great Wistarias at Kew worthy of the 

 festival the Japanese hold in honour of their 

 blossoms. And on tne left-hand side of the 

 entrance there is an old, rare Chinese tree 

 with picturesque " pinnate " leaves and pale 

 flowers. The botanists have given it the name 

 of Koelreuteria paniculata. It is another re- 

 minder of the debt European gardens owe to the 

 prehistoric gardens of China. 



A Yew more than 50 years old an uncom- 

 mon tree in London grows in the middle of the 

 Garden. In Webster's London Trees this is said 

 to be one of the largest Yews in the Metropolis, 



Among the smaller old trees on the 

 Swan Walk wall is a Styrax, which yields 

 the resin storax, used to relieve coughs since 

 the days of Pliny. Its bright, shiny, green 

 leaves are almost as round as half-a-crown ; 

 and on the same wall there is Pomegranate, 

 another old-world shrub, to which the Romans 

 gave the name of Punka, because they believed 

 it came to them from Carthage. Its mass of 

 little narrow leaves, shaped like lancet -windows 

 shows that the London winters have not 

 harmed it. 



