204 Notes and Recollections of a Tour. 



Edinburgh Botanic Garden. — But a few rods from the Cale- 

 donian Horticultural Society's Garden, and upon the same 

 side of the road, is the entrance to this extensive place. A 

 walk about six feet wide, with a belt of beautiful trees and 

 shrubs, conducts to the rear of the handsome dwellings which 

 border the road, where the gardens cover an extent of eight 

 or ten acres of ground. Mr. McNab, senior, is the curator, 

 and has long filled the duties of this office, fully, we doubt 

 not, to the satisfaction of the members, if we were to judge 

 from the appearance of every thing under his charge. Mr. 

 McNab has long been consideired the most successful heath 

 cultivator in Scotland ; and when this is admitted, it will 

 readily be conceded, that few other plants require the same 

 skill. We were indeed surprised at the high state of health 

 in which we found all the plants, in every department — hot 

 house, palm house, heath house, greenhouse, &c. ; and the 

 open ground was no less remarkable for the neatness and 

 order of every part. 



The range of houses for plants is upwards of two hundred 

 feet long, and divided into several compartments. There is 

 also a very handsome octangular palm house, thirty feet high 

 and fifty feet wide. This was the first place we entered. It 

 is filled with immense specimens of various species, which 

 had now so completely filled the house that the plants were 

 suffering for room. Two specimens of Pandanus odoratissi- 

 mus were each thirty to forty feet high, and proportionally 

 spreading ; Corypha umbracaulifera, thirty feet ; the Ma- 

 hogany tree, (Swietenia Mahago/ii,) thirty feet ; Latania 

 borbonica, twenty feet ; with very large plants of Strelitzm 

 augusta, &c. : these were all in most excellent health, not- 

 withstanding their crowded state. 



From the palm house, we entered the first compartment of 

 the large range, which is the heathery. Here we saw what 

 we had not yet, during our entire visit, seen before — heaths 

 eight to ten feet high ! indeed, quite trees, and some of them 

 so full of bloom as scarcely to see their foliage : these were 

 growing in pots, Jive feet in diameter and four feet deep. 

 The finest one in bloom was the ^rica hyemalis. Till now, 

 we had formed no conception of the real beauty of this tribe. 

 Like the magnificent fuchsias we saw at Sheffield, they ex- 



