1 46 DESCRIPTION OF THE MUSEUM. 



Among the shrubs, a beautiful horse-chesnut, 

 cesculus macro stachj a, brought from North Ame- 

 rica by A. Michaux, is seen spreading its branches 

 and long bunches of flowers at the distance of 

 only three feet from the ground. There are a 

 number of stocks of Christ's thorn, rhamnus pa- 

 liurus (i), as beautiful as those which grow in 

 the south of France ; the cissus, the periploca, etc. 

 The cukure necessarily varies every year, as some 

 plants are removed, and others substituted in their 

 place. In the centre of the nursery is a wooden 

 shed covered with red canvas, containing thirty 

 beehives, of the simplest and most complicated 

 structure, of which several are composed of 

 glass for the purpose of watching the labour of 

 the bees. M. Lasseray, to whose care they are 

 committed has made valuable observations on the 

 method of collecting the honey without killing 

 the bee, and has found out a mode of extracting 

 it from the comb without destroying the cells. 



On the south is a bed covered with bog-earth 

 and shaded by the lime-trees of the great avenue, 

 where are cultivated such plants as require a 

 cool temperature and peculiar care ; as several 



(1) A pretty ornamental shrub which would form impenetrable 

 hedges, as it has two axillary spines at the base of each petiole, the one 

 straight, the other curved: Virgil mentions it — spinis paliurus acutis. 

 It is commonly called porte-chapeau from the form of its fruit, which, 

 resembles a slouched hat. 



