876 HORTICULTURAL TOUR. 



Botanic Garden. 



The spot now occupied by the botanic garden had for- 

 merly been a flower-parterre and shrubbery, belonging to 

 the palace of the Arch-Duchess Marie-Christina, and was 

 appropriated to its preseut purpose at the time of the ge- 

 neral establishment of central schools, when the principal 

 part of the palace itself was converted into a gallery for 

 paintings. The garden is of small extent : it contains 

 an arrangement of plants used in medicine, but little else, 

 excepting a noble collection of orange-trees. Of these 

 there are no fewer than 170, large and small. Several 

 of the larger are really admirable plants, about eighteen 

 feet high, including the box or tub in which they are 

 planted, with stems two feet in circumference, and not 

 less than 150 years old ; some of them indeed have seen 

 more than two centuries. These fine plants had, in for- 

 mer times, belonged to the various Arch Dukes and Du- 

 chesses of Austria, who held their court at Brussels; and, 

 to the credit of all parties, they have remained uninju- 

 red during the revolutionary period. Sheep-droppings 

 had been thickly strewed over the surface of the soil in 

 the boxes, to strengthen the plants, as the gardener said, 

 and promote their flowering. Besides the orange- trees 

 properly so called, there are a good many citrons (Ci- 

 trus medica) ; and of these, some are sauvage or ungraft- 

 ed, the twigs being armed with slight spines; others are 

 bigaradeti) which are frequently allowed to produce their 

 fruit. The fruit is distinguished by having a very thick 

 rind, at once bitter and acid, and which is here in high re- 

 pute as a seasoning in cookery. 



The repository in which this ample collection is kept 

 in the winter season, is necessarily very large: by pacing, 



