166 KEW GARDENS 



it were, among an enclosure of scaffolding." 

 Young and eupeptic visitors will inquire for the 

 coco-nut, whose fruit reaches them only in a 

 dry, curdled, shrunken state, poorly representing 

 its fibrous green globes filled with soft butter 

 and refreshing milk. The double coco -nut of 

 the Seychelles to be seen here is only a distant 

 relation, whose nuts, like a pair of giant's boxing- 

 gloves joined together, grow " full of white jelly, 

 enough to fill the largest soup-tureen." It was 

 one of General Gordon's crotchets to regard this 

 as the forbidden fruit of Eden ; but at Kew, Eve 

 could surely have found apples more tempting 

 of aspect for example, the Japanese date-plum 

 in the Succulent House. One must not, how- 

 ever, attempt a catalogue of all the vegetable 

 strangers coaxed and coddled to grow in an 

 asylum, which might have taken a larger scale 

 had a proposal been carried out to transfer 

 the Crystal Palace to Kew rather than to 

 Norwood. 



Near the Palm House stands the Tropical 

 Lily House, where now the Victoria Regia 

 should open in July its huge white flowers tinged 

 with royal red. This queen of water-lilies, that 

 first flowered in Britain at Chatsworth, has to 



