ICS THE PALMS OF AMEniCA. 



insurmountable, have been overcome by tlie 

 ardour and perseverance of those who have 

 made the subject their sjDecial pursuit. Tlie 

 cultivation of many species in our own land 

 ■will also add to our knowledge respecting them. 

 The astonishing improvements of late years in 

 horticulture have rendered multitudes person- 

 ally acquainted with the rich botanical trea- 

 sures of far distant regions, which, but for the 

 advance of this science, could only have been 

 presented to the eye of the mind as they were 

 described by the traveller. Now, the " tarry- 

 at-home traveller" may feast his eyes with the 

 glowing colours and strange forms of the para- 

 sitic orcliids of the Brazilian or Javanese forest, 

 growing luxuriously in the " orchidaceous 

 house" of our large nurserymen, or in the con- 

 servatory of the man of wealth. Bananas, 

 tree-ferns, bamboos, and the giant creepers of 

 equinoctial forests, have astonished the eyes of 

 thousands of our countrymen, as they have 

 surveyed them in the conservatories at Chats- 

 worth .and elsewhere ; while the graceful and 

 noble forms of the palm trilic are, perhaps, now 

 even more familiar from the beautiful specimens 

 exhibited in the palm house of the Messrs. 

 Loddiges at Ilacknej', the palm house of the 

 Kew Gardens, and especially in that centre of 



