KEW GARDENS. 



9 



congeal, and the lamps go out, at a time wlien a gale, we know 

 not tlow many degrees below freezing point, must drive, every un- 

 warned vessel on a lee shore. 



But we caught sight of the smoke-tower on leaving the cloak- 

 room, and have not yet advanced far along the vista. On our 

 right are some beautiful large Conifers in tubs, out of their summer 

 airing. They are tender ; the more's the pity — for the Dacrydium 

 cupressinum^ from New Zealand, is perhaps the most unmistakea- 

 bly weeping and disconsolately mournful tree in the world ; and 

 no one can look at the Norfolk Island Pine without being angry 

 with it, that so much beauty should be combined with so much 

 effeminacy. Perhaps we blame and i^unisli other weaknesses and 

 unrobust idiosyncracies, with the same degree of reason and jus- 

 tice as we should exercise in scolding the delicate Araucaria excel- 

 sa because it it is not gifted with the obstinate temper of a Nor- 

 way fir. On the left is the Great Orangery, one of Sir William 

 Chamber's solid magnificences, now empty of its inmates, but soon 

 to become the winter garden of those High Tendernesses for 

 whose infirmities we have been offering a sentence in apology.' As 

 we proceed, Mr. Nesfield spreads on each side of us bright pieces 

 of carpet, each tinted with one colour. The materials of which 

 this living tapestry is woven are. Calceolarias, — C. amj)lex{caulis^ 

 a clear, canary yellow ; Pelargoniums — pink-flowered, ivy-leaved, 

 and 'Frogmore,' of a scarlet bright enough to blind weak-eyed 

 mortals ; blue Campanula Carpathica ; grey (when considered 

 in toto) Alyssum variegatum ; Ageratum Mexicanum, of clear 

 lavender ; the dingy blue (as seen in mass) Lobelia, Eriniis^ var. 

 compacta ; fringed with black and yellow, the Sanvitalia pro- 

 cumbens ; and Verbenas that bid defiance to the tinctorial art. — 

 There stands the Palm- House — certainly the most elegant if not 

 the most bulky glass structure in the world : but we will leave it 

 for the present, and turn to the left, for the sake of the Victoria 

 and other houses. Here^ on the grass grows a puzzle for hybri- 

 dists — a laburnum between Cytisus nigricans and (7. Laburnum, 

 The plant has put forth one branch cf nigricans and one of La- 

 burnum ; the rest is hybrid. Further on we pass between two 

 paper-mulberry trees — Broussonetia papyrifera — from the Society 

 Islands, which have stood the last seven winters without any pro- 

 tectioii. We are inclined to discard the word acclimaMze^ for de- 

 noting the supposed process of making sl plant capcxble of living 



