SOUTH AMERICA IN ITS RELATION TO HORTICULTURE. 51 



SOUTH AMEEICA IN ITS EELATION TO HOETICULTUEE. 

 By A. W. Hill, M.A., F.L.S. 

 [Eead, October 25, 1910.] 



The subject of South America in its relation to Horticulture is of so 

 wide a character that it is not possible to touch on more than one of its 

 aspects in the course of a lecture. 0\Ying to the vast ext-ent of the 

 country and the diversity of climatic and physical conditions, the flora 

 is highly varied and extremely rich in subjects ^Yhich are suitable for 

 horticultural purposes. 



I might- dwell on the tropical products of the Amazonian forests 

 and of the forests of the great basins of the Orinoco and Magdalena in 

 the north, where many of the palms which adorn our stoves and tropical 

 houses in Europe have their homes : where also several of our more 

 remarkable orchids and nearly all the great pineapple family, the 

 Bromeliaceae, are to be found. Then again there is the drier tropical 

 country of Eastern Brazil, where many strange vegetable products, only 

 met with occasionally in Botanic Gardens, grow, a territory which 

 is also the home of the Ceara rubber, Maniliot Glaziovii (the analogue of 

 the Hevea of the Brazilian forest), and other recently discovered rubber- 

 yielding species of this genus. The alpine and sub-alpine zones of the 

 Andes abound with plants of interest to the horticulturist, but have 

 yielded relatively few plants to the cultivator, though among orchids the 

 genera Epidendrum, Oncidium, Masdevallia, and Odontoglossiim, 

 which come mainly from this region, may be mentioned in passing. 

 Many plants of great interest and floral beauty await our enterprise 

 among the higher mountains, but difficulties of transport at present 

 act as an almost insuperable barrier to their successlul introduction to 

 this country. 



The plants from the regions to which I have referred, however, are 

 rather the plants of the few than of the many, and I think it will be of 

 more general interest to refer in greater detail to the plants of the tem- 

 perate southern region of Chile and Argentina, since to these countries 

 we owe many of our most useful and beautiful garden shrubs and herbs. 

 Such plants can be grown without any particular difficulty, and are, in 

 fact, grown by everyone who loves a garden and by many w^ho possess a 

 plot of ground filled with shrubs and bedding-out plants such as Cal- 

 ceolarias, Fuchsias, Berberis, etc., about which they do not particu- 

 larly care and as to whose original home they may not have the 

 faintest idea. 



Then again, the plants of this region have a more special interest 

 for the botanist since many of the South American genera have close 

 allies in New Zealand, and we are able to grow our South American 

 plants alongside their New Zealand relations, and may also be inspired 

 thereby to indulge in speculations as to the connexion which may 



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