15 
cannot be supplied by some member of this royal family of 
plants. They vie with the grasses in importance to mankind. 
Articles of food and drink ; materials for the manufacture of all 
kinds of household utensils ; fabrics for the making of ropes, lines 
and clothing ; materials for house-building ; and other uses too 
numerous to mention are filled by many of these plants. In 
civilized lands they take an important place in our decorations, 
adding much of beauty and grace, and the love of them and their 
culture has been the cause of the bringing together of many col- 
lections. 
Returning now to the description of the Garden collection, the 
palm which will first attract attention upon entering the large 
palm house by the southerly door and bearing to the right, will 
be the large specimen of Caryota urens, the wine or toddy palm, 
standing to the left and towering well above all its neighbors. 
This was illustrated and described in the November number of 
the Journal for last year. Immediately under the widely spread- 
ing leaves of this palm, and dwarfed by its greater height, is a 
specimen of Sada/ Palmetto, the cabbage palmetto of our south- 
ern states. It is now making a new crown of leaves after its im- 
portation. It is found wild from North Carolina, south along the 
coast to the southernmost part of Florida, and up the west side 
of that state to a considerable distance. Along the east coast of 
Florida it occurs in great groves and forms a marked feature of 
the landscape. The tuft of young leaves is said sometimes to be 
used as a vegetable. 
To the left of the Caryofa is another noteworthy palm, but 
quite unlike its neighbor. This is Phoentcophorium Sechellarum, 
a native of the Seychelles Islands, as its specific name indicates. 
An illustration and description of this plant will be found in the 
Journal for September of last year, and it is unnecessary there- 
fore to further allude to this palm, except to again refer to it as 
an example of the feather-veined leaf. Immediately in front of 
this is a specimen some 15 feet tall of Coccothrinax argentea, the 
broom palm, from the Isthmus of Panama, and in the immediate 
vicinity are smaller plants of a closely related species from Trini- 
dad, C. radiata, which is much more common in cultivation ; and 
