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general relations of the vegetable world to man. We learn from 
them the sources of the innumerable products furnished by the 
vegetable kingdom for our use and convenience, whether as 
articles of food, of construction, and application in the arts of 
medicine, &c.” 
Museum No. 1 contains the collections Wlustrative of the pro- 
ducts, &c., of the dicotyledonous and gymnospermous divisions. 
The arrangement is eminently practical, the contents being 
systematically arranged, numbered, and labelled. The building 
itself is a plain brick one, of three floors, and was opened to the 
public in 1857. It is filled with glazed cases, each of which 
contains specimens of raw and manufactured products of the 
vegetable kingdom, consisting of food, medicitte, articles of 
manufacture, and woods used in construction, &c. 
In this museum, also, are specimens in every stage of growth 
of that most singular plant, Welwitschia mirabilis, discovered by 
Dr. Welwitsch, in South-western Africa, about half way between 
the equator and the Cape, in 1859 ; and to quote Sir J. Hooker’s 
description of it—“Has a dwarf woody trunk, seldom rising 
more than a few inches above the ground, with a diameter often 
of several feet, and a single pair of leaves, usually torn to 
ribbons, which spring from the margin of the trunk, and persist 
through the life-time of the plant, which it is estimated may 
reach 100 years. It is related botanically to the pines and firs 
Coniferg, and is remarkable as presenting—associated with the 
simplest type of structure in its vegetable organs—a more 
complex form of flower than we find elsewhere in the group.” 
Another most extraordinary vegetable production, Rafflesia 
Arnoldi—a plant said to be impossible to cultivate—is represented 
by a wax model, presented by the Royal Horticultural Society of 
London. The Rafflesia Arnoldi is the largest flower in existence, 
is destitute of true stem or stalk and leaves, and in its natural 
state weighs from 12 to 15 pounds, while it is capable of holding 
twelve pints of water. It was discovered by a Dr. Arnold in the 
interior of Sumatra. 
In another glazed’ case is a specimen of the balsam bog plant 
(Azorella cespitusa), from the Falkland Islands, forming huge, 
hard, and hemispherical hillocks, often 2 to 4 feet in height, 
and which, in some respects, at first sight is not unlike the sheep 
plants of the mountains of New Zealand (Raoulia mammilaris and 
R. eximia), called so from their compact large tufts, resembling 
that animal when seen at a short distance. The Raoulia, which 
is also shown in the museum, is, like the former, a huge con- 
glomerate mass of diminutive flowers, but it belongs to the com- 
posite order, while the azorella is of the Umbellifere. The 
contents of Museum No. 2 comprise the products of the palm, 
grass, lily, mushroom, and sea-weed families. 
