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most important results, especially in taxonomy and plant 
physiology, many of which have been published in the ten 
large volumes of its ‘* Annales.” 
2. The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew are situated on 
the south bank of the Thames, about six miles west of Hyde 
Park Corner. They are reached by several railway routes, 
the time from Charing Cross being about forty minutes, by 
steamer and by omnibus lines. The present area of the 
gardens is about 260 acres, an addition having been made 
during the past year. These world-famed gardens originated 
in the exotic garden of Lord Capel, in 1759. In 1840 they 
were adopted as a national establishment and opened as a 
public park. The botanic garden proper occupies about 
seventy acres and the remainder is given to arboretum and 
pleasure grounds. There are two main greenhouses: 1. The 
palm house, 362 feet long, the central dome rising 66 feet; 2. 
The temperate house, of which the central portion is 212 feet 
long, 137 feet broad and about 60 feet high, flanked by 
wings which give a total length of about 580 feet, the whole 
covering between one and one and one-half acres of ground. 
There are also fourteen other houses, grouped in two ranges 
and more or less connected, given to special collections. 
There are three botanical museums: 1. Devoted to economic 
products; 2. to miscellaneous products; 3. to timbers. 
There is also a large museum hall given to the exhibition of 
floral paintings by the late Marienne North. There is a 
small laboratory equipped for research in physiological bot- 
any. The herbarium and library occupy the old palace of 
the King of Hanover, near the main entrance to the garden, 
and they are the largest and most complete in the world. 
The herbaceous ground is planted in long parallel beds and 
contains several thousand species. The arboretum is thor- 
oughly illustrative of all trees that will grow in the open at 
Kew, and the shrubs are, for the most part, cultivated in 
areas by themselves. There are numerous special features, 
such as the rock garden, the bamboo garden and the Ameri- 
can garden. 
