46 Notes and Recollections of a Tour 



will stand the climate of the Eastern States, although the 

 first is a native of Georgia. Lycesteria formosa, with its nu- 

 merous racemes of white flowers, succeeded by small pur- 

 plish fruit, is a Nepal shrub, which we should be glad to see 

 tried in our climate ; it is very ornamental. Two fine spe- 

 cies of Pyrus were P. pinnatifida and P. serotinus : Aralia 

 japonica Siebold, is a fine showy species. 



Passing round the ground, we entered the range of houses, 

 upwards of 300 feet long, and filled with plants. It is placed 

 in the centre of the garden, and is screened on the backside, 

 by a belt of shrubs and trees. The most showy objects at 

 this season, were the fuchsias, some of which were ten feet 

 high. The following is a list of what we saw here : — F. co- 

 rymbiflora, four feet high, with spikes of flowers a foot long : 

 globosa, four feet high, stem an inch through at the base, su- 

 perbly in flower, and a perfect specimen of beauty ; few of 

 the new ones excel this when well grown : fulgens, ten feet 

 high : Venus Victrix, two feet : triumphans, three feet : F. 

 radicans, with very large, broad foliage, a distinct species : 

 fulgens multiflora, with dense racemes of fine flowers, sepals 

 narrow, petals violet crimson : conica, eight feet high, and 

 of a pendant habit, the branches clothed with thousands of 

 flowers : elegans, six feet high, and fine. These plants had 

 been watered with guano, and, by repeated shiftings, some of 

 them had been grown to an immense size in two years. 



The growth of the camellias, in the camellia house, sur- 

 prized us ; the vigor of the plants, and at the same time, the 

 smallness of the pots, exceeding any we ever saw ; some of 

 the current year's shoots were twenty inches long, and propor- 

 tionally stout ; the pots one foot in diameter, and the plants 

 eight to ten feet high. This great vigor, Mr. Shepherd in- 

 formed us, was attributable to guano ; the plants had had 

 two waterings with it, one at the time they commenced to 

 grow, and the other when they had completed it and begun 

 to show their buds. Mr. Shepherd has tried many experi- 

 ments with this new fertilizer. Passing into the miscellane- 

 ous department of plants we saw a fine specimen of Lilium 

 lancifolium punctatum in bloom ; also a new plant, Habro- 

 thamnus fasciculatus. The orchideous house and the other 

 plants all looked in fine condition. 



