292 Observations upon the effects of Frost, 



importance to procure supplies of seeds of this plant from Valparaiso ; 

 for to introduce in abundance so remarkable a vegetable production 

 as this is when old, with columnar trunks often 100 feet high, sur- 

 mounted by a pyramid of grotesque branches, would be an ob- 

 ject scarcely less than national, even if the plant did not furnish ex- 

 cellent timber, and an abundance of valuable resin. It also appears 

 that Aristotelia Macqui, and the Escallonias, rubra and glandulosa, 

 all beautiful evergreens, are about as hardy as a Laurustinus, that 

 the graceful little Berberis empetrifolia is regardless of cold, and 

 that Colletia horrida, Duvaua ovata, and Heimia salicifolia, also 

 seem likely to bear this climate. The preservation of herbaceous 

 plants is less important ; but it is satisfactory to know that some 

 at least of the Alstromerias may be henceforward regarded as hardy 

 border flowers. 



The number of Californian and Mexican plants in our gardens, 

 which have been the subject of experiment, is inconsiderable. Of 

 these it is found that the species from California are more tender 

 than those from Mexico : a circumstance doubtless to be explained 

 by the Californian species having been taken indiscriminately from 

 warm vallies and mountain sides, while no one has thought of na- 

 turalizing any Mexican species except from the cold mountain 

 ridges. What is most important is that all the beautiful pines and 

 firs from these regions, of whose habits so little was previously 

 known, prove to be perfectly hardy wherever they have been tried, 

 with the exception of Pinus insignis and P. leiophylla. 



The winters of North America are usually so rigorous north of 

 the districts warmed by the Gulf of Mexico, that to state that a 

 plant is from the United States, is usually equivalent to saying it is 

 hardy. There are, however, some exceptions to that rule, and it 

 was requisite to possess the experience of such a winter as this, in 

 order to judge whether the plants from the British possessions on 

 the Pacific would be as hardy as those from the Atlantic side of 

 the Rocky mountains. The latter seems now to be well esta- 



