172 ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW 
Economic 
Plant-houses. 
new stocks can be propagated and sent abroad as required, without 
having to revert to the native source ; and by keeping authentic 
specimens under view, it enables the identity of newly imported 
plants, or plants en route, to be established. This is the more important 
because so many economic plants possess no very striking or dis- 
tinguishable characters of leaf and habit. Visitors to Kew are fre- 
quently disappointed that many famous plants should have so ordinary 
an aspect. There is the upas tree, for instance. Although it does 
not possess the devastating powers poets and ancient travellers 
ascribe to it, it yields a poison deadly enough indeed. But its aspect 
is as guileless as that of the common privet. 
The collection proper of tropical and subtropical economic plants 
is grown in the two compartments of the T-Range which constitute 
its west wing. They are No. n (tropical) and No. 
12 (subtropical). Many famous plants are grown 
here — plants whose names are household words, such 
as allspice, bread-fruit, caper, cinnamon, ginger, indigo, ipecacuanha, 
mahogany, nutmeg, sarsaparilla, squill, and strychnine. But the 
lack of space and the necessity of growing the plants in pots pre- 
clude their attaining anything like a natural state. Many notable 
economic plants, however, are grown in the larger buildings, and 
may be found in the Palm House, Temperate House, Aroid House, 
etc., where they can be seen in a more characteristic state. 
Growing in the porch of the central compartment of the T-Range 
(No. io) is a collection of those curious and interesting plants 
popularly termed insectivorous or carnivorous. These 
plants possess the faculty of trapping insects by means 
of various devices, and of afterwards absorbing their 
juices. The object is probably to supply the plant with nitrogenous 
compounds which it is unable to acquire through the roots. In 
gardens, the best known of these plants are the Sarracenias, North 
American plants whose handsomely-coloured, ' erect leaves are hollow 
and trumpet -shaped. The inside of the “ trumpet ” is clothed with 
fine hairs all pointing downwards. These hairs offer no impediment 
to the luckless fly or bluebottle proceeding to the bottom, but effectu- 
ally prevent its return. In the Droseras, or sundews, the leaf is 
covered with hairs tipped with a viscous substance like birdlime. 
When once a small insect has touched this, it is never allowed to 
escape. 
Insectivorous 
Plants. 
