KEW GARDEIs^S. 



19 



palustris ; Gutta Perclia, in all its stages, from the inspissated 

 juic^ to the decorative casting [Isonandra Gutta) ; India rubber 

 as it flows from the tree, to the railway bnfler ring, the drinking- 

 cup and bottle — [Ficus elastica) ; cakes of maple sugar, looking 

 like bad brown soap — [Acer saccharinuin) ; beet sugar, in loaves 

 of the purest white, of French manufacture — and indeed the com- 

 mon sugar of France — from the Beta vulgaris^ a native not of 

 this country, but of the south of Europe ; gamboge, of which 

 there are various species, the best being the Hehradendron picto- 

 rum^ although the gardens possess but one sort alive — viz. ' the 

 Xanthochymus pictorius of Roxburgh, of which the fruits, which 

 ripen with us, yield, on being punctured, the juice which concretes 

 into one kind of gamboge, the most powerful of drastic medicines, 

 and affording the brightest and best known of yellow colours.' — 

 The ivory-nut palm — [PhytePiphas macrocarpa) — from New Gre- 

 nada, is fully illustrated. Here is the stem of the plant, a 23ortion 

 of the wood — if such it can be called — the spathes — the flowers — 

 the aggregate fruit — like a Negro's head — the nuts — a nut with 

 the radicle and plumule just germinating — besides various arti- 

 cles manufactured of this vegetable ivory. 



The temples of Pan and of Confucius, which once ornamented 

 the gardens, have alike passed away, but the Museum more than 

 supplies their place as an admirable temple of Science. Strange 

 uses of vegetables are disclosed to whosoever shall seek for initia- 

 tion into the mysteries of this nnsuperstitious fane. It is true 

 the Cannonball Tree of Guiana, Couroupita Gitianensis, though 

 it does put forth odd-looking globes, does not actually furnish am- 

 munition to the South Americans. Its shells are not dangerously 

 explosive, but are used, like the calabash, for domestic purposes. 

 Its fruit is said to be vinous and pleasant when fresh, and the only 

 mischief it does is to emit, when decayed, an insupportably offen- 

 sive odour. But the Towel Gourd, Luff a ^gpytiaca^ a native of 

 the tropics, is used both as wadding for guns and as a sponge. — 

 The Bottle-gourds are well known — and the epidermis of the An- 

 dromachia igniaria (Quito), used as a tinder, is only one of a nu- 

 merous list of similar substances ; but many of our readers will 

 be surprised to hear of the Caripe or Pottery -tree of Para. The 

 bark is burnt and ground, and the ashes are mixed with clay to 

 make vessels. It enables them to stand the fire without breaking, 

 and in the vast alluvial plains of the Amazon is doubtless a valua- 



