Kew Gardens: Or, A Popular Guide to the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew

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Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1851 - 60 pages
 

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Page 29 - The fig-tree, not that kind for fruit renown'd, But such as, at this day, to Indians known, In Malabar or Decan spreads her arms, Branching so broad and long, that in the ground The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow About the mother tree, a pillar'd shade, High overarch'd, and echoing walks between...
Page 31 - Weak with nice sense, the chaste MIMOSA stands, From each rude touch withdraws her timid hands; Oft as light clouds o'erpass the Summer-glade, Alarmed she trembles at the moving shade; And feels, alive through all her tender form, The whisper'd murmurs of the gathering storm; Shuts her sweet eye-lids to approaching night; And hails with freshen'd charms the rising light.
Page 1 - Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers, In mingled clouds to him whose sun exalts, Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints.
Page 7 - Board of Green Cloth, it was liberally relinquished by her present Majesty Queen Victoria, and placed under the control of the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Woods and Forests, with the view of rendering it available for the general good.
Page 12 - A national garden ought to be the centre round which all minor establishments of the same nature should be arranged. . . . From a garden of this kind Government would be able to obtain authentic and official information on points connected with the founding of new colonies ; it would afford the plants there required, without its being necessary, as now, to apply to the officers of private establishments for advice and assistance.
Page 39 - Two plants of this latter kind " had been," says Sir WJ Hooker, " in the royal gardens, first of Hampton Court and then of Kew, probably from the earliest introduction of the species into Europe, upwards of a century ago (in 1731). On one and the same day, in the summer of 1844, each was seen to produce a flowering stem, which resembled a gigantic head of asparagus, and grew at first at the astonishing rate of 2 feet in the twenty-four hours.
Page 6 - So sits enthroned in vegetable pride Imperial Kew by Thames's glittering side ; Obedient sails from realms unfurrow'd bring For her the unnamed progeny of spring...

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