128 
THE FLORIST’S JOURNAL. 
sides of trees which have a free exposure to the mid-day summer 
sun, have the timber in a great measure deprived of its resin, 
which forms an efflorescence on the bark and leaves, or melts into 
drops, according to circumstances. In the Australian trees, especi¬ 
ally the Eucalypti , or gum trees, as the colonists term them, the 
leaves are powdered with an efflorescence of resin; and the gum- 
resin exudes from the bark in large quantities. The consequence 
of this is that the timber lasts little longer than till the aqueous sap 
has dried out of it; and thus it soon decays, even when its substance 
in the recent state is so compact and heavy as to sink in water. 
The Norfolk Island pine (.Araucaria excelsa ), and the Moreton 
Bay pine (A. Cynninghami ), which are splendid trees, more espe¬ 
cially the one first mentioned, have this unfortunate property. By 
the way, there are in a little glade within the botanic garden 
very fine specimens of these, standing in contrast with the Chili 
pine (. A . imbricata) of the southern Andes. Excelsa is an 
especially graceful tree in its habit of growth, and it grows rapidly, 
so that one cannot help regretting the perishable nature of its 
timber. 
But while no one of taste and knowledge can help admiring 
these and many other natives of far distant climes, which are 
growing luxuriantly at Kew, and many of which have reached a 
maturity and magnitude unequalled in any other British collection, 
one cannot help being struck with regret that the more modern 
importations, those which characterise the present vigour of re¬ 
search and discovery, should be few of every genus, and wanting 
in many; and this regret is the more bitter that the fault lies 
wholly in departments over which the director of the gardens has 
no control. We mentioned in a former paper that the collectors 
of plants were in the pay and under the control of the admiralty. 
This of course made the collection of plants at all times a very 
secondary object; and the economy of more recent times—an 
economy often more parsimonious than discriminating—has of late 
years reduced it to nothing; so that while private societies and 
private individuals have active collectors of plants in many parts 
of the world, there is not at present a single collector for the 
national gardens at Kew. Surely this is not as it ought to be. 
We do not mean that this national establishment should be a rival 
in sale to the dealers in plants ; neither do we mean that it should 
tend to lessen the reward of their labours by gratuitous distribu- 
