The Garden Magazine, January, 1924 
287 
Lattice-leaf plant ( Ouvirandra fenestralis). 
This is an aquatic plant which grows slightly 
submerged below the water and has a skele¬ 
ton-like leaf. It was introduced into Europe 
in 1855 by the Rev. William Ellis who pre¬ 
sented the plant to Kew and other botanic 
gardens. It is a plant of great interest and 
always excites admiration, but is difficult to 
grow and good specimens are rarely seen. 
Of fruits the eastern tropics have a plenti¬ 
ful variety, but only the Banana is really 
known to people of the North. The Mango 
is cultivated in hundreds- of sorts and by 
some esteemed king of tropical fruits. Among 
the many others is the Durian with its fruit 
as large as a child’s head, all stout spikes 
without, pure white and custard-like within 
of a flavor undescribable, though to my 
palate too impregnated with a garlic flavor. 
The proper relish of tropical fruits is mainly 
an acquired taste and especially is this true 
of the Durian, but the Mangosteen is, in my 
opinion, when eaten in Java or Singapore a 
fruit for gods. 
The tropics of the Old World were first 
broached by Vasco da Gama and his 
ships in 1498, followed by the Spaniards to 
the Philippines in 1543 and the Dutch to 
Malaysia in 1595. The spices of the Indies 
and other products soon became famous 
and many were the strange tales and fables 
told of the marvels of tropical vegetation. 
From earliest down to latest times plants have been carried to 
western lands by voyagers- of all sorts and descriptions, but it 
was the 19th century that saw most of the ornamental tropical 
plants brought into our hothouses. The agencies have been 
manifold, but no one house has done more than that of Veitch, 
the famous nursery firm of Chelsea, England, now, alas, no 
longer in existence. Its travellers have been many but for 
the Old World tropics 1 content myself by mentioning John 
Gould Veitch, F. W. Burbidge, Charles Curtis, and David Burke. 
One of the 
panicles of 
MEDINILLA MAGNIFICA 
most gorgeous of tropical plants in greenhouse cultivation bearing foot-long 
brilliant coral-red bloom admirably set off by shining evergreen foliage 
PITCHER-PLANTS (NEPENTHES) 
First discovered in 1661 by P. Commers, in Madagascar, these un¬ 
canny insect-eating plants continue to stir the curiosity of men 
Veitch, after most useful collecting work in Japan, visited the 
South Sea Islands and Australia and sent home many of our 
Crotons, Dracaenas, Pandanus Veiichii, Aralia Veitchii and 
many other plants now deemed indispensable. Stricken with 
lung affection, hemorrhage set in and he died in August, 1870, at 
the early age of thirty-one. 
F. W. Burbidge travelled in Malaysia during 1877-78 and 
sent home a number of good things including the wonderful 
Nepenthes rajah and N. bicalcaraia, several Orchids and Ferns. 
In 1879 Burbidge was appointed curator of the Botani¬ 
cal Gardens at Trinity College, Dublin, and held the 
position until his death in December, 1905. He did 
much to establish the present day popularity of the 
Narcissus and Daffodil, 
Charles Curtis’s name is inseparably associated with 
the history of Nepenthes, many fine species of which he 
introduced, including N. Northianae, N. madagascarien- 
sis, N. Curtisii. He also sent home many Orchids and 
valuable stove plants during the years 1874 to 1884 in 
which he travelled for Messrs. Veitch. In 1884 he was 
appointed Superintendent of the Botanic Gardens, Pen¬ 
ang, from which he retired in 1903. With health broken 
by long residence in the tropics, he returned to England 
where he now lives. 
David Burke was born in Kent in 1854 and collected for 
Veitch from 1881 to 1897. He visited both the Old and 
New World tropics and enriched gardens with a host of 
fine plants of which many were Orchids. He died on the 
island of Amboina on April nth, 1897. It is recorded of 
Burke that he was one of those curious natures who pre¬ 
fer to live with native people more or less as a native 
and his early death was partly due to lack of proper at¬ 
tention to matters of food and health. In this connec¬ 
tion it may be added that a plant collector’s life is a 
rough and lonely one, and living under the conditions 
he has to live, it is easy to become morose and eccentric. 
Not all of us are endowed with a sense of humor suffici¬ 
ent to banish gloom and loneliness and maintain com¬ 
plete sanity among all sorts of people. 
