BOTANICAL GARDENS. 



285 



Virjjiuia; Jias stood many winters perfectly uninjured 

 in the open borilers of our garden on the Hudson. 

 Its growtli, however, seems slower, and it produces 

 flowers more rart'ly than the Adam's Needle. Still, 

 as both the foliage and flowers are quite ornamental, 

 it is worthy of a place in every good garden. It 

 flowers in September, the blossoms being whiter, and 

 growing more closely to the stalk, than those of Y. 

 gloriosa. 



III. Yucca Flaccida, or the free blooming Yuc- 

 ca—This is one of the most popular and commonly 

 cultivated sorts in our gardens — growing and bloom- 

 ing with as much ease as a cabbage. It is a native 

 of Georgia — but is hardy as an oak all over the 

 northern states. The specific name, flaccida, is giv- 

 en from the greater pliancy of the leaves, which, in- 

 stead of being perfectly stiff, like some of the other 

 species, are a little weak, and frequently bend in the 

 middle. This species has no .stem or trunk, and the 

 reader may get a good general idea of its appearance 

 when in bloom, by imagining the foregoing figure of 

 Y. gloriosa, with the foliage springing directly out 

 of the ground — the leaves, however, being narrower, 

 and more numerous, and the flower stem "about half 

 the height. There are slender threads along the 

 edges of the leaves. This Yucca blooms in our 

 northern gardens as freely as the common white lilly 

 — throwing up its beautiful pyramidal flower stalks, 

 two or three feet high, about the end of June, and 

 bearing a profusion of fine milk-white flowers, all the 

 month of July. It is one of our favorite evergreen 

 plants, beautiful at all seasons. 



lY. Yucca angustifoi.ia, the narrow leaved Yuc- 

 c". — A fine hardy species, found by Ndttall on the 

 banks of the Missouri — and grows and blooms in our 

 gardens exceedingly well. The foliage is long and 

 narrow, egded with threads, and quite stiff. The 

 leaves spring out of the ground without a stem, like 

 those of the last variety. The stalk is straight, and 

 not branched, like the precediugsorts, the flower bells 

 more oblong, and the flowers a pale greenish white. 

 It blooms at mid-sunmier, and is a very distinct orna- 

 mental species. Messrs. Hogg, of New York, have, 

 we believe, cultivated it with success in the open bor- 

 der, for many years. 



There are several other species of Yucca which 

 are less known, but which would doubtless succeed 

 in our gardens. Yitcca draconii — the Dragon Yucca 

 a native of Carolina, growing eight or ten feet high, 

 which is hardy in England, would no doubt be so 

 here; but though it is to be found in many of our 

 green-house collections, we do not hear of any one 

 having made trial of it in the open air. There is a 

 variety of Y. gloriosa with striped leaves, which is 

 very ornamental. Y. stricta, and Y. glavcessens are 

 an interesting species, natives of the southern states, 

 that would well repay the labor of cultivation. 



We have said enough, however, to call attention to 

 this really noble genus of evergreen plants — whose 

 superb flowers and striking foliage, render them more 

 valuable as ornaments to lawns, gardens, or rock 

 work, than almost any others that we could name. 

 As they are mostly natives of the sea shore, they are 

 also especially valuable to decorate the grounds of 

 the marine cottages and villas that are springing up 

 at Newport, and other sea-side watering placea Most I 



of the sorts we have described may be had at very 

 u.oderale prices, of our leading plant growers, and 

 nothing but ignorance of their real merits, prevents 

 their being much more generally cultivated. — A. J. 

 Downing. 



BOTANICAL GARDENS. 



Botanical Gardens are on the Continent attached 

 to all universities or collegiate establishments where 

 the medical portion of the instruction imparted is 

 considered as of any importance. For it is there 

 universally admitted that botany, or the knowledge 

 of plants from which the great majority of the most 

 valuable medicaments are prepared, as well as chem- 

 istry, which teaches the mode of extracting the me- 

 dicinal principle to the best advantage, are two most 

 essential branches of a medical and especially of a 

 pharmaceutical education; and a botanical garden, 

 when well conducted with reference to its special ob- 

 ject, is found to be of essential service in such a 

 course of botanical lectures as the student in medi- 

 cine requires. It is also of great assistance to the 

 professor who would give to his pupils such an inter- 

 est in botany as should induce them more or less to 

 pursue it beyond the lecture-room, either as an inde- 

 pendent science, or as a branch of general knowledge, 

 to be applied as occasion may point out in the vari- 

 ous paths of life and business they may follow. 



Personal visits, in many cases several times repeat- 

 ed during the la,st 20 or 30 years, to upwards of 60 

 of these continental botanic gardens from Barcelona 

 and Palermo to Upsala and Petersburgh, from Paris 

 and Brussels to Constantinople and Odessa, have led 

 us to take much interest in the question of the real 

 objects and practical working of these establishments. 

 Watching such accounts of them as appear more 

 especially in the German journals, official reports or 

 extra-official complaints, we have been led to an ex- 

 amination of the causes why, notwithstanding the 

 recognized utility of many of them, there are yet 

 others which appear far from answering the expecta- 

 tions entertained respecting them as helps to useful 

 instruction in medical or general botany. 



Leaving out of the question such large establish- 

 ments as the Botanic Gardens of Paris, Berlin, Pe- 

 tersburgh, Vienna, &c., where we every now anil then 

 hear of splendid outlays (not even then always back- 

 ed by corresponding annual expenditure,) the univer- 

 sal complaint at all these gardens is want of funds. 

 But is the best use always made of the funds which 

 they have? Are not sometimes the main objects in- 

 terfered with or entirely lost sight of in the vain at- 

 tempt to supply commercially the deficient means? 

 And is there not, generally speaking, a desire rather 

 to do much than to do well ? — to crowd into the 

 smallest space every variety of arrangement, scientific 

 or practical, that has been thought of in the most 

 magnificently appointed establishment, and above all 

 to swell their lists with as large a number of names 

 as possible, without caring for the reality or correct- 

 ness of these names, or for the value or wortldcssness 

 of the articles represented ? These are topics upon 

 which it may be useful to enter into some further de- 

 tails. — G. B. in Gardners' Chronicle. 



