Vs"^jN THE passage to Australia our ship touched at 
Colombo, Ceylon, and afforded opportunity for the 
jpf ffu fl passengers to spend a few hours ashore. The day was 
EJM showery and one could not travel far yet perhaps a few 
words about the plants and flowers 1 saw may interest readers of 
The Garden Magazine. 
The native folk cultivate very few plants other than those of 
purely economic value; but the white man has long since es- 
tablished his flower garden and through his influence the net- 
work of well-made roads is bordered with fine trees, and a 
small park — Victoria Park — which has been laid out in lawns, 
avenues, and flower beds. The trees are largely strangers, but 
the flowering and foliage shrubs are familiar, being exactly the 
same as those grown in the greenhouses of America and Eng- 
land. The lawns are not of the fine soft grasses of the north, 
but of a coarse broad-leaf Sedge which carpets the ground 
nicely yet is vastly inferior to the lawn grasses we know. These 
unfortunately cannot withstand the heat, drought and tor- 
rential rains of the tropics. 
T HE white man’s love for the flower companions of his youth 
is shown in attempts — often futile — to cultivate them 
wherever he may happen to sojourn for a season or two. So, 
cheek-by-jowl with native flowers are grown in Colombo 
familiar Zinnias, Hollyhocks, Begonias, Cannas, Poinsettias, 
Crotons, Lantanas, Acalyphas, Coreopsis, Phlox Drummondii, 
and Dianthus Margaritae. The Phlox looked remarkably well, 
but the other herbs were bedraggled and decidedly unhappy. 
Roses are grown — beds of them — but all were weedy in habit and 
complaining of the excessive heat from which no period of rest 
was allowed. 
In tubs were growing very fine plants of the Golden Fern 
(Gymnogramma chrysophylla) and sheltered beneath a lath- 
house were a few Orchids in flower among tender leaved, shade- 
loving Ferns. From the branches of a tall Banyan-tree hung 
IN COLOMBO. CEYLON 
E. H. WILSON 
Assistant Director, Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University 
Editor’s Note: — T his is the second of the “Letters o) 
Travel’’ that Mr. tVilson is sending to The Garden 
Magazine from time to time, and which do not appear 
in any other publication. Mr. tVilson is himself seeing 
new worlds in his present journey and subsequent notes 
will interpret what he sees from the standpoint of first 
impressions of any American traveler in a strange land. 
No doubt much of the gardening seen has suggestion and 
inspiration for us; and Mr. tVilson with his intimate 
knowledge of plants of Europe, Asia, and America both 
as a gardener ( his first vocation), and as a garden 
botanist (his present occupation ) is peculiarly fitted to 
see for others. 
rope-like stems of the Vanilla Orchid and beneath were 
beds of Maidenhair Ferns, bright leaved Caladiums, and 
Marantas with exquisitely marbled foliage. The Honolulu 
Creeper (Antigonon leptopus) with racemose clusters of lovely 
rose-pink flowers and the familiar Bougainvillea glabra, 
wreathed with its magenta blossoms, far more intense in 
color than as known in greenhouses of the north, are common in 
Colombo even as they are in tropical gardens the world over. 
Allamandas with their large, clear yellow flowers and the fav- 
orite Stephanotis floribunda with its richiy scented flowers in 
clusters are also plentiful. A pretty combination over an arched 
trellis was a luxuriant growth of the blue Passion-flower 
(Passiflora vitifolia) and Gloriosa superba with quaint red and 
yellow flowers, the segments of which are twisted, erect yet 
quite reflexed. A charming sight from the near distance was a 
bed of the shrubby Petrea volubilis with blue, starlike flowers in 
erect racemes almost hiding the foliage. 
T HE Rose-of-China (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis), now cosmo- 
politan in the tropics and subtropics, and its relative, H. 
schizopetalus, with incised and fringed blossoms are hedge 
plants in Colombo. Abundant also is the parent species of 
the favorite Boston Fern. Very attractive at the moment of my 
visit were beds of the showy Clerodendron fallax with erect, 
thyrsoid clusters of bright red flowers. Moonflowers — blue, 
violet, and purple — scrambling and twisting over every con- 
venient object, and studded with lovely blossoms, were con- 
spicuous from afar. More rarely seen was the related Ipomoea 
Briggsii with digitately divided leaves and axillary clusters of 
carmine flowers. Clumps of feathery Bamboos relieve the 
landscape and particularly striking were impenetrable masses 
of the spiney Bambusa spinosa with stems towering full sixty 
feet. 
Very interesting, but less familiar, are the trees, most of them 
with wide-spreading umbrageous crowns. Often used as a street- 
tree in Colombo, as elsewhere in the tropics, is the Flame-tree 
(Poinciana regia) but only here and there were a few trusses of 
its brilliant flowers to be seen, though its flattened, woody pods, 
each often two feet long, were abundant. When properly in 
blossom this is perhaps the most gorgeous of tropical trees; the 
intense brilliancy of its red flowers actually dazzles the eyesight. 
A close competitor is Spathodea campanulata, a tree-relative of 
the Trumpet-vine with twice larger flowers of similar color 
shaded with yellow. There are other street trees in Colombo 
whose names 1 do not know, including a member of the large 
Pea family with finely divided leaves of delicate green; broad, 
erect masses of light yellow flowers and short, thin pods. In 
the Park a fine specimen of the Indian Cassia nodosa with long 
cylindric pods and yard-long pinnate leaves arrested my atten- 
tion. Large trees of the Cashew-nut (Anacardium occidentale) 
are as happy in Colombo as in their home in the tropics of 
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