168 KEW GARDENS 



intoxicating cups that act upon the drugged 

 victim like the digestive organs of an animal. 

 Here are billeted the delicate orchids, living on 

 moist warm air, which in our day have been 

 brought to flower in succession all through the 

 year, even by electric light under the smoky 

 glass of Birmingham, sought out for our hot- 

 houses so diligently that in their tropical wilds 

 some of the richest sorts begin to grow rare, 

 while of a thousand specimens gained perhaps at 

 the cost of felling as many trunks, but a few 

 may survive the trying journey, at the end of 

 which is worth more than its weight in gold 

 what ran wild as a parasite weed in the tree-tops 

 of the Magdalena or the Orinoco. 



This group of hot -houses cools off into a 

 conservatory of South African plants, containing 

 potted heaths such as bloom over vast stretches 

 of Karroo, along with specimens of the curious 

 Japanese art of dwarfing trees. For a contrast 

 to these nurseries of tender exotics, one might 

 turn to the Rock Garden beside them, towards 

 the Cumberland Gate, where Alpine and other 

 hardy growths thrive in a hollow set with rockery 

 supplied by the destruction of one or more of 

 those fanciful structures of the Georgian age 



