MALMAISON. 40, c i 



we are given to understand that some of the best plants 

 have been removed ; while many rare ones have unavoid- 

 ably perished, no adequate encouragement being given for 

 keeping up, far less for increasing, the collection. In one 

 of the conservatories, the original bulb of Brunsvigia Jo- 

 sephinae was pointed out to us. It had been procured from 

 the Cape of Good Hope by a Dutch collector, and was 

 sent from Holland to the Empress. When it first flowered, 

 the plant was figured in Hedoute's splendid work on the 

 Liliacea?, under the name of Amaryllis Josephina?. The 

 original bulb had here produced its flowers in the early 

 part of this season (1817) : the head of decayed flowers was 

 three feet and a half in diameter, and we could still count 

 the remains of about fifty blossoms. The bulb, which has 

 now been at Malmaison for about seventeen years, mea- 

 sures, at the surface of the soil, two feet and a half in cir- 

 cumference. The flower-stalk, from the bulb to the base 

 of the umbel, is twenty inches high ; it is flattish, and 

 about three inches in breadth. There are at present no 

 vestiges of leaves ; these, as in many others of the lilia- 

 ceous tribe, falling down and decaying before the flower- 

 stem springs up. The gardener seemed pleased that we 

 should feel an interest about this plant, and presented us 

 with three or four of its ripe seeds *. We may add, that 

 a specimen of this remarkable plant produced its flowers, 

 for the first time in England, in May last, at the rich col- 

 lection of bulbous plants in South Lambeth ; but the flow- 

 ers were considerably smaller than at Malmaison, perhaps 

 owing to the comparative smallness of Mr Griffin's bulb. 



In the larger conservatory, many species of the New 

 Holland Acacias have grown very tall, so as to reach the 

 lofty glass roof. The diversified foliage was now most 



* One of these is now growing at Dalkeith Gardens. 



oc2 



