1 78 Botanical Notices from Spain. palese transformed into perfect vegetative leaves of the flowera situated higher up, all the flowering organs have generally disap-peared without leaving a trace behind them. XXVI. — Botanical Notices from Spain. ByMoRiTzWiLLKOMM*. No. I. Valencia, middle of May 1844. On the first days of my stay in Valencia, where I arrived on the 5th of May, my operations were confined to making acquaintance with the scientific institutions and the surrounding neighbourhood of the town. I was the more invited to do this, since the continued rainy weather offered an obstacle to longer excursions. Indeed the Valen-cians themselves could scarcely remember it to have rained so abun-dantly and uninterruptedly, and this weather was even a subject of public discussion in the newspapers. The temperature was almost to be called cool ; since at this time of year the mean daily tempe-rature is usually 20° C, and it amounted then barely to 15° — 17° C. One of my first walks was to the Botanical Garden by the Puerta de Cuarte : into this you enter through a rather insignificant building in which the lectures on botany and agriculture are delivered. The garden, laid out in a magnificent style, occupies a very large space, and considering the glorious climate and the uncommon fertility of the soil, might, under the direction of an able man, become one of the most important gardens in Europe, if the government would do something for its maintenance. It has it is true the appearance of a botanical garden, since one sees many rows of labels, but the plants are wanting. What plants there are, are the remnant of those placed there through Cavanilles, and exotic shrubs and trees of a still earlier date. The fault of this lamentable decline of so well-arranged an institution is partly to be laid to the deficiency of interest on the part of the government in all that relates to science, partly and chiefly to the want of a well-informed director. Considering how luxuriantly everything grows up in this happy land in a few years, without any care, much might be accomplished with very little money. Of plant-houses there is no trace ; they are indeed super-fluous, since a great number of tropical plants may be cultivated very well here in the open ground ; at the utmost only a green-house would be necessary in the short winter. The present director of the garden is named Don Jose Pezcuerda, so far as I may judge, a tole-rably ignorant man, whose whole knowledge of literature is confined to little more than the works of Linnaeus, Cavanilles, Clemente, Lagasca, Buflfon and DeCandolle. Of Germany he knew almost nothing ; neither does he possess a herbarium. Nevertheless the garden is in somewhat better condition in his hands than under the direction of his predecessor, the present Cathedratico of agriculture, Don Joaquin Carrascosa, formerly Archdeacon in Alicant. Although • Translated from the Botanische Zeitung, Aug. 9, and Oct. 18, 1844, and communicated by A, Henfrey, F.L.S.
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