40 
12. Even when protected by artificial means, as in green- 
houses and conservatories, the characters of plants in this, or to 
them other alien climate, differs much from those in places where 
the same species are indigenous. This circumstance is, no 
doubt, familiar to all of us who have noted conditions as seen 
in tropical regions, and in the houses in which the same plants 
are maintained for use, ornament, or luxury, in and near 
London, as elsewhere. With every care that can be bestowed 
upon the management of such places, extending to heat, 
moisture, degree, and kind of light, and so on, the fact 
remains that these plants are in an alien climate , and their 
condition suffers accordingly. Attempts are made, more or 
less successfully, to lead to the inflorescence of particular 
plants in seasons other than those in which that phenomenon 
naturally occurs. One familiar to most of us is the common 
lilac ( Syringa vulgaris ), forced into blossom at Christmas- 
time ; the result, pale, sickly, etiolated flowers and leaf. And 
so it is in other instances. 
13. Residents in India, whether in the plains or hills, are 
well aware how great and rapid are the changes which occur 
in the character and life of plants imported from England. 
In former years the sight might be witnessed of a daisy, the 
common crimson-tipped flower so named (the Beilis 'per ennis ) , 
being despatched, like human invalids, to the hills, so as to 
avoid the coming heat of summer ; the same plant brought 
down and restored to its accustomed shelf, as the cold season 
again set in. English shrubs become so altered in appearance 
as to be unrecognisable ; our favourite flowers change their 
time of expanding, and gradually lose their well-known 
fragrance. In like manner, English vegetables deteriorate, 
and that so rapidly, as, after the second crop, to be of no 
farther value. In the hilly districts, exotic trees become 
attacked in great number by some of the many species of 
Loranthus there met with. In this way the parasite is multi- 
plied ; it attacks and destroys the native forest trees in yearly 
increasing numbers. 
14. Seeds introduced from cold and temperate climates 
into those more torrid are found in a large proportion 
of instances to have lost their power of germination. Not- 
withstanding the great care dictated by experience as necessary 
in the attempt to rear such plants as have germinated, the 
circumstance is within the personal knowledge of all who have 
observed phenomena that the young shoots, pale, etiolised, and 
delicate from the hour they show their tiny leaves above 
ground, at first thin and lanky — soon bend, droop, then die 
and decay, leaving the few of what in the phraseology of the 
