216 REMINISCENCES OF A VOYAGE TO AND FROM CHINA. 
We got several plants of the Toiv-Cow —a half-aquatic, very common 
in the gardens at Canton. This plant was in Mr. Slater’s collection 
for several years before our visit to China, and was then, from the 
appearance of its foliage, considered to he an Amomum ; but it was at 
last flowered by Mr. Wykes, at Messrs. Grimwold’s, Kensington; after 
which it got into every collection under the names of Glcbba, Rene- 
almio; but at last was settled by Roscoe as the Alpinia nutans. 
The Bomhax ceiba, already alluded to as a highly ornamental tree, 
being in British collections long before our voyage to India, we took 
only one plant on board, which, however, was lost on the passage home. 
As this tree grows freely, and is easily propagated by cuttings, it 
deserves some other and better treatment than it has hitherto had in 
our collections. Being deciduous, and presenting in winter a hardy¬ 
looking aspect in the neighbourhood of Canton, we had great hopes 
that it might be brought to a flowering state in Europe, by being 
planted on a warm border, or against a south wall. This we have 
never had an opportunity to try; nor do we know whether it has been 
tried by any one else, who has had our advice on the subject; but 
surely the tree deserves a place in a warm conservatory or palm-house, 
where, if planted in a large pot or box, in good loamy compost, it may, 
perhaps, be nursed up to a flowering bulk, and show its splendid blos¬ 
soms. We know not whether the plant be susceptible of being worked 
in any way : that is, whether it could be budded or grafted on itself or 
other congenerous stock; if it could, the operation w r ould expedite the 
period of flowering. But should such means fail, other expedients, to 
induce a dwarfish habit, might be tried, as keeping it long in the same 
pot, allowing it but little water, investing the stem with a tight band¬ 
age, or any other repressive means which would not quite kill the tree. 
Many cultivators possess the means of making such experiments, and 
these may avail themselves of the hint. If a nurseryman, having a good 
stock of young plants, could flower an old one, his young stock would 
quickly disappear. The same means may be practised with many 
other tropical trees which have not yet flowered in our collections. 
Another very beautiful tree attracted our attention, of which we 
purchased a drawing, and saw many beau°pots of the flowers in almost 
every private house and church we entered during a festival which, if 
we remember rightly, was called the “ Feast of Lanthorns” happening 
about the end of February. This, in the language of the country, is 
called Tauchongj but of which not a single portable plant could be had 
for either love or money. Our slight stock of botanical knowledge only 
enabled us to mark it in our list as Andromeda arborea, as we were 
