THE TEMPERATE HOUSE 
157 
remarkable features ; and shaddock, guava, and quinine plants. 
Among purely ornamental plants the Strelitzias are very striking, 
especially 5 . Regina, with orange and blue flowers, and the tall 
5 . augusta and S. Nicolai, with great splendid leaves. In one of 
the side borders is grown a collection of Javanese rhododendrons, 
a distinct and semi-tropical branch of this beautiful genus. The 
purple-flowered Brunfelsias, planted in the borders, succeed better 
here than they have ever done elsewhere in Kew, as do also specimens 
of Lagerstrcemia or Indian lilac. Palms and cycads are planted 
freely ; of the former, Cocos flexuosa produces a stately effect planted 
as an avenue along the central path. 
The “ peepul ” ( Ficus religiosa), perhaps the most sacred of all 
trees in India and Ceylon, is here. A plant of exceptional interest 
is Draccena Draco ; it is a portion of the famous 
of^rotava 66 dragon-tree of Orotava, Teneriffe, a tree which was, 
perhaps, the oldest in the world when it was destroyed 
by a gale about 1867. It had not gained appreciably in size during 
the last 450 years of its life. The “ tree tomato ” ( Cyphomandra 
betacea) bears large crops annually, as does also the papaw, the 
remarkable plant which produces an edible fruit and whose leaves 
have the strange quality of rendering tough meat quite tender when 
it has been wrapped in them for a few hours. 
The Himalayan House is of the same dimensions as the Mexican 
House, and the internal arrangement of the beds is the same. Whilst 
_ the Mexican House provides warmer conditions than the 
The 
great Winter Garden, this wing is devoted to plants re- 
House y quiring cooler conditions. All the plants in this house, 
indeed, would thrive perfectly well in the open air at Kew 
for eight or nine months of the year, but would often find the winter 
too severe and the spring too uncertain. Most of them succeed 
admirably in Cornwall and the south-west of Ireland. The prevail- 
ing type of vegetation here is North Asiatic, especially Himalayan, 
Chinese, and Japanese. But a few New Zealand and South American 
plants find a place also. 
Ever since the systematic introduction of foreign plants to Great 
Britain was commenced by Kew in 1772, certain well-marked epochs 
have occurred in which the plants of a particular area of the globe 
have been largely introduced for the first time. Thus the latter years 
of the eighteenth century are associated in the minds of horticultural 
