VISITING THE GARDENS 165 



paratively little expense can bring together a 

 collection of our rare and delicate blooms, there 

 ranking as weeds. 



AVe are better off for money and skill, that at 

 Kew have done so much to acclimatise or safe- 

 guard the productions of more favoured climes. 

 What may be called the heart of the Gardens, 

 on the side towards the Richmond road, is the 

 Great Palm House, hardly great enough, as 

 from time to time some of its pushing guests 

 have to be turned out or snuffed down for fear 

 of their prising off the roof. This huge hot- 

 house enshrines a medley collection of tropical 

 forms, grand and graceful, brought together from 

 Africa, Asia, America and Polynesia, getting 

 their fill of heat and moisture, if not of sunshine. 

 One guide-book says that almost every variety 

 of palms is represented in the exotic jumble, 

 which is rather too much to say, as their species 

 are counted by hundreds, about a hundred in 

 the woods of the Amazon alone. The most 

 striking trees here, looking ill at ease in the 

 confinement of their tubs, are specimens of the 

 pandanus or screw -pine, with its sword -like 

 leaves and its stilt-like roots, propping the top 

 in the air "with its trunk hid for repairs, as 



