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I. The Public Conservatories 
Range No. 1 
This great glasshouse, located but a short distance from 
the terminus of the Third Avenue Elevated Railway, is 512 
feet in length, with a central dome about 90 feet in height, 
and wings extending from the main range in such a way as 
to form a court open to the southwest. The area under 
glass is about one acre. The building stands on a terrace 
5 feet in height, approached by six flights of cut granite 
steps connecting with the path and driveway approaches. 
The house contains fifteen compartments, separated by 
glass partitions and doors. 
House No. r contains palms of numerous species from all 
parts of tropical and warm regions, both of the Old World 
and the New. Of West Indian palms, the collection con- 
tains the royal palm of Cuba and Florida, an elegant plant 
of the corozo palm (Acrocomia media) of Porto Rico and the 
Windward Islands; the cocoanut palm, planted in all 
tropical countries for its fruit and for the numerous uses to 
which its fiber, wood and leaves are applied; it is not 
definitely known that the cocoanut palm is a native of the 
West Indies, and where in the tropical regions it actually 
originated is uncertain. Other tropical American palms 
are illustrated by the silvertop palm (Coccothrinax argentea), 
of Florida and the West Indies and by the curious Mexican 
Acanthorhiza aculeata with spine-like roots on its trunk. 
Old World species are shown in a very large tree of the 
Chinese fan-palm, by the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) 
of northern Africa, and by numerous other large species 
from the Pacificislands. Another Old World palm is Cala- 
mus asperrimus, of Java, curious in its climbing habit; the 
specimen here is over one hundred and fifty feet long; the 
long tail-like appendages to the leaves, which have back- 
wardly turned spines, enable the palm to climb on sur- 
rounding vegetation. Related to the palms and shown by 
numerous specimens in this house, we find a number of 
