12 PREFACE. 



at Kew under the name of Veitchia canterbwryana^ 

 The Kew plant is figured in the Bot Mag. (t. 7018) 

 where it is stated to have been sent from the Sydney- 

 Botanical Gardens. 



Trachycarpus excelsa is represented by specimens in 

 different parts of the grounds. The history of the old 

 specimen near the principal entrance (which formerly 

 stood in front of No. I. house may be recorded. A 

 native of Chusan and the North of China, it is one of 

 " six plants .... received in 1845 from Mr. Robert 

 Fortune, a well-known Chinese plant collector" (Smith, 

 Records, p. 116). 



Palms in cultivation are slow in developing the full 

 size of their crowns. But when once this stage ia 

 achieved the upward growth of the stem is com- 

 paratively rapid. But the time is reached when the 

 dome of the Palm House is unable to accommodate their 

 height, and it is then necessary to cut them down and 

 replace them. A great clearance was made from this 

 cause in 1876 (Report, p. 4). Perhaps the greatest 

 ornament of the Palm House which was felled at thi* 

 date was the stately plant of Livistona humilis, figured 

 in the Bot Mag, (t. 6274). According to Smith (Records, 

 p. 118j, it had been received in 1824 as a germinating seed 

 sent in a case from Australia by Allan Cunningham. 



Screw Pines. 



The Pandanacece are an order of trees or shrubs- 

 allied botanically to Aroids, but differing widely in 

 habit. They are all tropical or nearly so, and natives, 

 of the African islands and those of the Pacific and 



