Wild Flowers of Georgetown. 315 



the golden gorse that Linnaeus thanked God for on the 

 heathy banks : and, later on, scarlet poppies and corn- 

 marigolds and bright blue corn-flowers among the ripen- 

 ing wheat : who that has ever roamed among these and 

 their beautiful kindred does not feel the magic of their 

 very names, recalling memories of bright scenes and 

 happy days in by-gone years ? 



Few such associations may cling to the names of our 

 local flowers, and it may be admitted that at first sight 

 the coast-lands of British Guiana do not seem a very 

 promising field for the unscientific botanist. The straight 

 dams that take the place of our country lanes at home, 

 and the trench-cut squares and right-angled parallelo- 

 grams that do duty for fields, are not favourable to the 

 growth of these wildings, which seem to choose homes 

 of beauty by some sympathetic instin6l. Still, we have 

 many pretty, some fine, and a few very beautiful flowers, 

 and a district in which the Victoria regia grows as a 

 weed in any pond or trench is not altogether without 

 claims to floral distinction. Nor is there any lack of 

 material to work on ; the casual observer, who may have 

 noticed half a score of weeds and wild-flowers in 

 and about the town, may be surprised to learn that, 

 without including the grasses and sedges, there are at 

 least three hundred kinds of wild flowering plants to be 

 found within the limits of the ordinary afternoon walk 

 or drive, some two hundred of which may be gathered in 

 the Botanic Gardens alone. And if few of these have 

 any striking beauty of their own, they form at any rate an 

 interesting suburban flora, presenting examples of many 

 important types, and a great variety of the wonderful 

 adaptations of plant and (lower to situation and mode 



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