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Several interesting tall vines climb on the pillars of this 
house, and on supports along the sides, among them the 
night-blooming jessamine (Cestrum Parqui) of tropical 
America, which opens its flowers after dark and exhales a 
delicious perfume, the flowers remaining open during part 
of the morning; Henderson’s Allamanda, of Brazil, with 
its showy large yellow flowers, climbs to the roof. 
House No. 5. The plants in this house are from desert 
regions. Especial attention is called to their fleshy stems 
or leaves which serve as storage organs for a water supply 
to carry them over periods of drought. On the right hand 
bench, as one enters from No. 4, are mainly plants from 
southern Africa: the carrion flowers (Stapelia), relatives of 
our common milkweed of the roadsides; Gasteria, Hawor- 
thia, and other South African representatives of the lily 
family; and the fig-marigolds, Mesembryanthemum, be- 
longing to the carpet-weed family. 
On the end of the center bench, opposite to the entrance 
from house 4, is the collection of the fleshy members of 
the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, mostly natives of the 
Old World. These closely resemble forms of the genus 
Cereus and related genera of the cactus family, to be 
found in houses 6 and 7. In fact, the adaptation to an 
arid environment, by the thickening of stems or leaves, is 
strikingly illustrated in the plants of several families con- 
tained in the collections in houses 5 to 8. On the center 
bench are the aloes, mainly South African members of the 
lily family. A part of the center bench and the side bench 
on the east side are devoted to members of the orpine family, 
many of these interesting and beautiful forms. ‘The eche- 
verias from Mexico and Central America, and the sempervi- 
vums or house-leeks, from the Old World, are conspicuous 
among these. Among other genera represented are Sedum, 
Kalanchoé, Pachyphytum, and Crassula (in house 6 are large 
specimens of Crassula portulacea). Many of the stone- 
crops are hardy plants, and a collection of these may be 
found at the herbaceous grounds. A large number of 
