JOURNAL 
OF 
The New York Botanical Garden 
VoL. XII October, 1911. No, 142. 
REPORT ON A VISIT TO THE ROYAL GARDENS, KEW, 
ENGLA . TO THE BRITISH MUSEUM 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
To THE SCIENTIFIC DIRECTORS, 
Gentlemen: Pursuant to your permission I sailed from New 
York, August 9, on the Cunard steamship “ Lusitania,” accom- 
panied by Mrs. Britton, arriving at Fishguard, Wales, August 14, 
and proceeded to the Royal Gardens at Kew, Surrey, England, 
for the purposes: (1) of studying the living plant collections in 
the grounds and greenhouses with reference to comparison with 
our own and in particular those of Saar (2) for the com- 
parison in the Kew Herbarium, and in that of the British Museum 
of Natural History, of over nine ee specimens of Cuban 
plants of our recent collecting, which I took with me for that 
purpose, together with a considerable number from Jamaica; be- 
sides (3) for information concerning a number of questions which 
have arisen during the course of our work, only to be obtained by 
reference to older collections. 
An exceptionally severe and prolonged drought had turned 
usually moist and green southern England to grey and brown, so 
that much of its normal beauty was absent; fields and lawns in 
particular were affected, the latter so much so in many places as 
to make us wonder if they could ever be brought back to their 
usual velvet-like condition without ploughing and resowing. 
Gardens also, naturally, had suffered severely; shrubs showed 
leaves and fruits dried up long before their time for falling; trees 
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