26 



steps of this "Dea Palmaris" one looks back along the Alea 

 Barboso Rodrigues, as they have called this palm fringed vista, 

 to the sparkling blue water of the bay. All the other paths in 

 the garden have been named for botanists, mostly South 

 Americans. There is another avenue of these palms at right 

 angles to the main one, and just inside the fence along the 

 main street. This Caribbean plant, much planted elsewhere 

 in Rio, grows so much taller than all other palms in the garden 

 that it dominates everything else. The Emperor Dom Joao IV 



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Under the shadow of Corcovada, (The Hunchback) lies the luxuriance 

 of Rio's Botanic Garden. This rocky peak is the highest and steepest of ail 

 the mountains in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Elevation 2310 feet. 



decreed that all seed from the "mother palm" of this aA'enue, 

 planted in 1809, should only be used for replacements in the 

 Jardim Botanico. It is today perhaps the most widely used 

 decorative palm in Brazil. It is nowhere wild. 



From the street end of the avenue of royal palms there are 

 many other paths radiating fan-fashion, and a large series of 

 smaller ones cutting across these radii. This gives many small, 

 irregular-shaped plots, all numbered, and quite often devoted 

 to a single species, genus or family as their importance may 

 dictate. There is no attempt to put on the ground a scheme 

 of the presumed evolutionary development of plant families, 



