The Bewildered Amateur Gardener in the Tropics 
Anna Oilman Hill 
It is to be hoped that the Flora of Heaven will not differ funda- 
mentally from that of our old Mother Earth ; or that Saint Peter will 
at least dole us out a "hand list" of common plants to be found in 
the vicinity of Jerusalem Dore : for we do not wish to experience again 
that tantalized, bewildered feeling caused by our sojourn in tropical 
Mexico among galaxies of strange, nameless trees and flowers, without 
a botany or herbarium within reach. 
The residents assured us that in the days of Cortez a full illus- 
trated list of the botanical treasures of the new country was made, but 
this was locked away in the archives of Spain. The Mission fathers 
also had collected and sent back minute descriptions and specimens of 
each new plant indigenous to the regions; these, too, are in Spain. 
There was even a rumor of a stupendous botanical work in many vol- 
umes, written in Spanish and profusely illustrated in color, but this 
was locked up in a mysterious library and is as impossible of access to 
the hungry amateur yearning for practical help, as were the parrots 
and monkeys swinging saucily above our heads in the orchid-laden 
forests of Orizaba. They badly need a Senora Dana's Como Se Cono- 
cer los Flores Salvajel 
Could not someone persuade Mrs. Parsons and her able illustra- 
tor to take a sabbatical year in Mexico for the good of the cause? The 
California flora was almost as tantalizing to tourists until she published 
her popular Wild Flowers of California, which has made the Mari- 
posa and Brodea as familiar names as Daisies and Buttercups to the 
proletariat. 
The same trouble has been felt by our members while sojourning in 
Florida, where so many seeds of rare and curious plants have been 
brought from the Indies by birds to the hummocks of the Florida Keys. 
Here the strange perplexing growth reduces the helpless amateur 
botanist to exasperated tears, which are augmented by the bewilder- 
ing variety of exotics introduced by man into the gardens — with no 
way of finding out what they are. 
However, there are now three books which make the identification 
of Florida plants simpler. One is a most intelligently written catalogue 
of the Royal Palm Nurseries at Oneco, which gives all the more showy 
flowers suitable for gardens, indigenous and exotic. The second is a 
little book called Ornamental Gardening in Florida, by Charles T. 
Simpson, Little River, Florida. And the third is a really important 
work. Flora of the Florida Keys, by Professor John K. Small, of 
the New York Botanical Gardens, pubhshed by him in 1913. The 
latter book is scientific but can be used by anyone familiar with such 
books as Grey's Botany. 
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