KEW GARDENS. 



a dos, on tlie same leaf ; there is Pitt ; Pimcli and Judy seem the 

 principal characters on the next. You may remember that, on 

 the first restoration of Louis XVIII., a coloured print of a bunch 

 of violeites was contrived to show profiles of Napoleon, his Em- 

 press, and the King of Rome ; — a leaf turned back did the office 

 of the immortal cocked-hat. That little pot-plant, labelled Dor- 

 stenia, shows a curious fructification. It is something like a flat 

 piece of green Iccither growing at the end of a flower-stalk, and 

 is, in fact, a flat, 02wn receptacle of minute flowers visible with a 

 magnifier. It is a strange intermediate form ; for roll it up with 

 the flowers outside, and it is a bread-fruit ; with them inside, and 

 it is a fig. Were the ripened receptacle large and juicy enough 

 to be eaten, it Avould be literally a fruit-cake. In that corner 

 stands a pot of ginger, not preserved, except from unnecessary 

 handling. It would take a long day to pay due attention to eve- 

 ry thing in this one small hot-house. We will visit it again. 



A moderate-sized apartment not far distant must be entered with 

 courage, and yet with reverence. Therein swims in state the 

 Queen of Plants, She v/ould be confessedly a Cleopatra, were 

 she not something better, a Victoria. It is stifling hot ; and pray 

 mind the descent. Warm work for the young man who remains 

 here on duty, even though her Majesty consents to admit him to 

 her presence in uncoated full dress ! It feels the closer for the 

 roof being so low|; but most plants thrive the better for being 

 brought near the glass, or for the glass being brought near 

 to them. The cultivation of low-growing plants and shrubs 

 would not be easy in a crystal cathedral. A forest of palms 

 or a wilderness of bamboos would be more thrifty there than 

 a series of flower-beds, to be sauntered amongst and gazed 

 upon by promenaders of ordinary stature. But that is not our 

 aflair. Pictorial arguments are the order of the day. Mr. Leech's 

 most alluring sketch of ' John Bull in his Winter Garden' gives 

 the blooming Victoria as a detail. But the plant is dormant in 

 winter, unless it is to be forced ; and the forcing that will make it 

 a nice task for the gardner to avoid boiling it. By such shows as 

 this — as Punchy smiling in his sleeve, well shows — the multitude 

 are led. Another dioramic feeler of what may be tried on was 

 explained by a lecturer, who, while modestly abstaining from dis- 

 cussing the feasibility of the project, still informed the admiring 

 spectators of the Winter Garden by gas-light, that it was proposed 

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