164 KEW GARDENS 



of huge banyan trees bordered the principal drive to the 

 palace, with large birdVnest ferns growing on their 

 branches, each tree forming a small plantation of itself, 

 with its hanging roots and offsets from the branches. 

 Herds of spotted deer used to rest in the shade under 

 these trees, and parties of the great crested ground pigeon, 

 as big as turkeys, were always to be found there. 



The Botanic Garden near Rio de Janeiro, 

 also, has tropical features we can hardly match, 

 such as its colonnade of palms, a living temple 

 overtopping the suburban avenues in which tram 

 lines have been planted by foreign capital. Then 

 the Gardens of Peradenia in Ceylon gather such 

 a bouquet of choice flora as an enraptured 

 traveller compares to " the paradise of some 

 Eastern tale, designed and inhabited by invisible 

 genii." Our Australian colonies, so well off for 

 sun, if not for water, are undertaking to show the 

 Old Country what can be done in this way by 

 children freed from some of her disadvantages. 

 Sydney, besides its rich Botanic Gardens, can 

 afford to keep stretches of wild scenery preserved 

 in all their unkempt luxuriance ; and behind 

 Melbourne Nature itself has a giant grove of 

 gum-trees, rising from the undergrowth of ferns 

 that with us would rank as tall trees. And, of 

 course, in many other parts of the world, com- 



