JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Vol. XXXIX. 1913. 

 Part I. 



BOTANIZING IN BULGARIA. 



By C. F. Ball. 



[Read, February 4, 191 3 : Mr. E. A. Bowles, M.A., in the Chair.] 



Bulgaria is separated from Roumania by the lower Danube. Its 

 capital, Sofia, is a station on the International Railway and lies 

 on a high granite plain which divides the valleys of the Morava and 

 Maritza. The Rhodope Range dotted with monasteries forms the 

 southern boundary. 



The Balkan Mountains run eastward to the Black Sea, sinking 

 abruptly to the fertile Maritza valley on the south and more gradually 

 on the north side to the barren Danube pJain. 



The Bulgarians are a sturdy, independent nation, thrifty and 

 hardworking, maybe rather taciturn, but honest, and striving after 

 education. Only thirty years ago Sofia was a dirty Turkish village, 

 and from that the Bulgarians are making a worthy capital ; already 

 it has a population of about 100,000, and is like a miniature Brussels, 

 with magnificent public buildings, electric trams running along broad 

 well-paved streets, public gardens giving shade from the heat, and a 

 large well-planted park. But so fast has Sofia grown that the roads 

 on the outskirts of the town are anything but finished, and it is with 

 the utmost sangfroid that the Bulgarian coachman drives over builders' 

 waste materials, tree stumps, or other minor obstructions. 



On Friday, June 16, 1911, Mr. Cowley and I arrived in Sofia. 

 My intention was to collect plants for the Royal Botanic Gardens, 

 Glasnevin. We were met by The O'Mahony of Kerry, who, in the 

 time of the Macedonian murders, started an orphanage in Sofia 

 and has educated there peasant orphans for the army, for doctors, and 



VOL. XXXIX. B 



