the Botanic Garden at Padua. 319 



buildings are scientifically constructed, and command a fine 

 view. The range is 55 m. [180 ft.], long, and is divided into 

 seven houses, the largest of which is in the centre, and serves 

 as a stove : at the right and left of this are two houses, which are 

 not heated ; that on the right contains a stage for plants ; the other, 

 on the left, is beautifully arranged for the reception of seeds 

 and fruit. After the first of these houses, there is a warm 

 green-house, or dry stove, to which succeeds a house of equal 

 size, which contains the green-house plants. Next to the seed- 

 room a hot-house (serra) runs to the left, in which the plants 

 are not in pots, but planted in the borders, and the heat 

 circulates under the borders. This hot-house contains beau- 

 tiful specimens of banana (Musa paradisiaca), some of which 

 flower and ripen their fruit almost every year ; and a iacus 

 stipulata, the infinite ramifications of which have covered the 

 entire walls of the house with their beautiful verdure. After 

 this comes another house, similar to the former, where green- 

 house plants are kept, and principally those from New Holland. 

 The hot-house (caldario), and the two temperate houses (tepi- 

 darii) are warmed by fire heat. 



This garden is celebrated for a rich collection of succulent 

 plants, which, thanks to the assiduity of the present director, is 

 continually on the increase. In the central part we behold a 

 beautiful specimen of the tree variety of Chamae v rops humilis, 

 of the height of 5*50 m., which is covered, however, in winter ; 

 and two beautiful specimens of Magnoh'a grandiflora in the 

 open air, the highest of which is 15 - 24 m. high and 0*46 in. in 

 diam., the other is 14-*48 m. high and 0*51 m. in diam., which 

 are covered every year with numerous flowers. 



To the west are situated two houses, a smaller one, which is 

 occupied by the two gardeners of the establishment, and a 

 larger house, which is the dwelling of the director and 

 professor of botany, and in which the herbarium of the garden 

 is kept. It contains more than 6000 species (the herbarium be- 

 longing to the present professor is much richer), a collection of 

 fungi in wax, one of exotic fruits, and a library, chiefly botanical, 

 of more than 5000 volumes, left for the use of his successors 

 by the praiseworthy Professor Bonato. 



The garden of Padua, from the elegance of its arrangements, 

 the number and size of its buildings, and the goodness of its soil, 

 from the copious supply of water which is diffused throughout by 

 the application of a hydraulic machine, which is opposite the 

 entrance gate; from its position between two splendid edifices; 

 and from the superior construction of its hot-houses, is in no de- 

 gree inferior to the botanical gardens of any other university, as it 

 is superior to them in antiquity ; that of Pisa, which some assert 

 to be anterior, being founded after this, as Mathioli satisfac- 



