236 
Portrait of Dr. Thomas Thomson.—Sir Joseph D. Hooker has 
presented Kew with a replica of a portrait of the late Dr. T. Thomson, 
.R.S., by G. Richmond, R.A. The portrait was painted in 1852, when 
Thomson was 35 years of age, and the replica was done at Richmond’s 
house, under his eye, if not actually by himself. Dr. T. Thomson was a 
son of the celebrated chemist of the same name, and began his active 
er in the medical service of the Honourable E India Company. 
1847 he was selected to ME the mission to Tibet, and he was 
the first botanist to enter the Karakoram mountains. His narrative of 
the journey was an i agers contribution to many branches of science. - 
Subsequently he joined Dr. J. D. Hooker, and they botanised together 
in the Khasia mountains, and on their return to England i n 1850, he 
assisted at Kew in naming and distributing the viris collections, and 
in writing the first volume of the 
z S iaae of the Calcutta Botanic Garden, an Vene iria he 
held o w years, returning to England in 1860 i in bad health, from 
which n d recovered, though he lingered on until 1878. 
Handbook of the Flora of Ceylon.—The third volume, or third pert 
as it is designated, of this admirable work has just appeared. It co 
tains the orders Valerianacee to Balanophoracee. With it are pmid 
plates 51 to 75. These are Dus quarto size, and represent interesting or 
critical species. Dr. n, who is now on leave in this country, is to 
be congratulated on the. rapid progress of his undertaking. For further 
particulars see Kew Bulletin, 1894, p. 34 and p. 227, 
Cultivation of Plantains in British Guiana. esit the report on the 
eo 
population, the cultivation is a fir mly established minor industry,” those 
who follow it being called “farmers” as distinct from “ planters” who 
cultivate the suger-cane. Plantains are said to “delight in the stiff 
. newly empoldered clay lands of the colony, not objecting to the slightly 
: i d 
ac 
periodically at spring tides . . . - Such lands yield heavily but 
* the crop is liable to suffer, if the seasons prove very wet, from the 
plantain disease of the Colony." From the. report in the Blue Book for 
1893-4 published in the Colonial Reports em 133, British Guiana, 
p. 18, it appears that the cultivation is dying ou : 
“ The eultivatiou of uec on sugar ies becomes less year by 
ear, and there are now only 1917 aeres in plantains, and although 
many plantain farms of which there is no official record still exist, this 
vegetable has practically ceased, from. its comparitive scarcity, to be the 
staple food of the African population 
This change cannot fail to prove detrimental to the interests of 
the Colony. More money will necessarily have to be spent on imported 
rice and flour, while valuable lands will be left uncultivated capable of 
—— large crops of food. 
