PARK AND CEMETERY. 
i35 
eral public through his studies of the flora of Juan Fern- 
andez, and is now well acquainted by the penetrating 
insight shown throughout his numerous botanical con- 
tributions in the many botanical and horticultural jour- 
nals of the day. 
Geo. Massee, F. L. S., is principal assistant in Cryp- 
togams. Among his more recent writings, gardeners 
particularly recall the investigations of the Bermuda Lily 
disease/ published in the Kew Bulletin in the summer 
of ’97. 
Among the other herbarium assistants are N. E. 
Brown and B. Daydon Jackson, identified in the colla- 
boration of “Index Kewensis;” President Clarke of the 
Linnean Society; Dr. Staff, assistant for India and R. A. 
Rolfe the orchid specialist. 
The honorary keeper of the Jodrell laboratory of 
Physiology is Dr. D. H. Scott. John Reader Jackson 
(A. L. S.) holds the office of curator of the Museum. 
A wide stride since 1847 when Sir William Hooker was 
granted one room in which to exhibit economic speci- 
mens to the present day where three large museum 
buildings are well stocked with products and forms of 
vegetation. First to start and ever since foremost in the 
world it has reached a stage preeminent in its own field- 
The duties incumbent on the man for the past 30 years 
curator of this department is the best commendation of 
his fitness and efficiency. 
Geo. Nicholson, curator of the gardens, attends the 
living collections, maintaining those possessed and col- 
lecting others from every part of the universe. Mr. 
Nicholson is best known to American readers by his ex- 
cellent “Dictionary of Gardening,” where he brings down 
to date the types of work shown by Philip Milho, Lou- 
don, Lindley, Johnson, etc. A man of wonderful in- 
tellectual resource and a thorough horticulturist. In 
addition to the general honor and dignity he brings to 
his charge, the most interesting phase is his correspon- 
dence. Scarcely a person of note in the botanical and 
horticultural universe who has not at some time been 
approached by him to exchange plants or seeds with 
Kew, thus easily explaining the completeness of the 
Royal Gardens collections. 
In addition the regular staff includes a number of 
assistants in the Herbarium; an assistant curator of the 
museums; assistant curator of the gardens; four fore- 
men in the gardens; fifty gardeners; a number of me- 
chanics and about seventy day laborers. 
At the Herbarium each day from 10 a . m. to 4 p . m., 
questions of botany are studied, while at the economical 
museums problems facing merchants, pharmacists and 
various phases of industry are investigated. 
In the gardens proper the hours of labor extend from 
6 a. m. to 6 p. m., with one and three quarter hours for 
meals. 
The assistant curator supervises the cultivation and 
general care of most of the indoor plants; the foreman 
of the decorative department oversees conservatory and 
decorative outdoor section. Over the arboretum’s care, 
culture and propagation, a separate foreman is placed 
and likewise over Herbaceous and Alpine plants; as also 
one for the temperate house. 
Mr. Baker attends to the labelling of the garden col- 
lections an 1 the respective foremen maintain the labels 
in proper place. 
Mechanical construction and repairs of all sorts are 
under a clerk of the “Board of Works,” and all garden 
operations are supervised by the curators. 
Each gardener is responsible to a sub foreman for 
health and thriftiness of his plants and general polish of 
his charge. 
On account of the old age of Kew, the general prelim- 
inary operations necessary to transform the physical geo- 
graphy by grading, protecting the grounds from with- 
out by masonry and planting, and planting for decora- 
tion and allowing time to develop has long since been 
completed and enables the entire income and time to be 
expended on maintenance and strictly botanical work. 
The annual expenditure, necessary for maintenance is 
12,000 pounds sterling. 
One of the best tokens of public appreciation and 
confidence is the spirit of donation. As a recipient 
of such gifts Kew is noted. Trees and shrubs by the 
Duke of Argyle; economic products by the Indian Gov- 
ernment; rock plants by Geo. Curling Joad, ferns by 
Dr. Foster and Carbonell, and the continuous flow to 
herbarium and library is of a size and magnanimity sim- 
ply wondrous — Lindley, Bentham, Hooker, Banks, De- 
Candolle, etc., while to enumerate those living would 
be to include every botanist of note and the better por- 
tion of all those interested in plants throughout both 
hemispheres. 
The gardens are open to the public each day from 
10 a . m. to sunset. Constables patrol the entire grounds 
as a matter of custom rather than necessity. Each day 
previous to opening to the public general routine and 
administrative necessities are gone through and artists, 
botanists, horticulturists, etc., with special claims to se- 
cluded facilities in study are admitted. Sundays the 
garden remains open from 1 p. m. till sunset, and garden- 
ers, employees and others on patrol are provided with 
badges — a custom started by Sir Joseph Hooker in 1883. 
In each greenhouse from one to four men are stationed, 
principally at the doors, to direct visitors to continue in 
a circuit around the house thus avoiding the passing 
each other in opposite directions and the consequent 
breakage of plants. Emil Mische. 
( To be continued ) 
There grows in Arabia a plant which derives its 
name, the laughing plant, from the pecular intoxication 
produced in those who partake of its seed. It is of 
moderate size, with bright yellow flowers and soft vel- 
vety seed pods, each of which contains two or three 
seeds resembling small black beans The natives of the 
district where the plant grows dry these seeds and re- 
duce them to powder. A small dose of this powder 
affects similar to those arising from the inhalation of 
laughing gas. It causes the soberest person to dance, 
shout and laugh with the boisterous excitement of a 
madman and to rush about cutting the most ridiculous 
capers for nearly an hour. x\t the expiration of this 
time exhaustion sets in and the excited person falls asleep, 
to wake after several hours with no recollection of his 
antics. The botanical classification of the growth has, 
it is said, not yet been indentified. 
