KEW aARDENS. 



11 



may be a sort of Blue Beard, and these are his secret dens. Oh, 

 if I could but rummage in these for one five minutes ! And they 

 call this throwing open the collection to the Public ! It is pretty 

 cool of the Guide-book to tell us that "No. 21 is a substantial 

 new Propagation-house, kept private : — at this time chiefly occu- 

 pied by the numerous young plants reared from Dr. Hooker's 

 seeds of Sikkim Himalayan Rhododendrons and that " JSTo. 4 is 

 another Double Propagation-House on an admirable construction; 

 that it is used as a hospital for valetudinarian vegetables, and rick- 

 ety or sea-sick plants which require peculiar care and attention, 

 and, therefore, this house is most frequently hept locked^ because 

 what is in it is of little or no interest to the public (jenerally P'' 

 Very provoking. I do not believe it.' Do not^ quite ; for we con- 

 trived to insinuate ourselves into one of the tyrant's hiding-places, 

 having caught him in one of his mollia tempora fandi^ and de- 

 tected there in the very fact—' of what V — of growing — a double 

 cocoa-nut, all the way from Seychelles. There ! — that luas a se- 

 cret. While double cocoa-nuts v^ere believed to grow in sub-ma- 

 rine palm forests, one of them would purchase a ship's cargo ; but 

 now times are sadly altered, and their price has dropped thousands 

 p>er cent. 



Into this small and recently erected low stove w^e may enter, on 

 the disobliging condition of shutting the door after us ; for a little 

 cool breath would be agreeable — and see wdiat grimaces those per- 

 sons are making before they dare venture to plunge into the heat- 

 ed air, though it is not w^orse than the gallery- stalls at the Opera. 

 Really the public are very amusing ; they have an idea that this, 

 on a large scale, will exactly suit their taste. But w^onders and 

 beauties crowd upon us. The plant there should have been dedi- 

 cated to St. Vitus. It has got the fidgets incurably. Night and 

 day, from its seed-bed to its repose in the compost lieap, it tvv^ich- 

 es and twists the tw^o little leaflets that grow on each side the 

 larger oval leaf Without perceptible care or motive — except the 

 indulgence of its ow^n caprice — the Moving-plant, Desmodimn 

 (once Hedysyriim^ gyra.ns^ goes on with its antics. But other 

 beauties in this nice boudoir have taken lessons of the posture- 

 master. A tall gentleman, who is followed by a string of listen- 

 ers eager to catch every word he drops, takes from his w^aistcoat 

 pocket a pair of scissors ; wath these he snips the tip of a pretty 

 leaf, whose divisions seem made up of scores of little leaflets : — 



