Passing to the next tent, we enter that part devoted to the fruit. A delicate aroma pervades the place. Directly before us is a large plant of the Chinese loquah, loaded with fruit. This is yellow, and about the size of a small plum. The plant is a great novelty; for although hardy enough to be grown out of doors in this country, it produces its fruit only in a hothouse. Associated with it are some large vines in pots, with a profusion of fine bunches of grapes. Then there are dishes of strawberries (_British Queens_), numerous pine-apples, cherries, peaches, bananas (grown in this country), melons, &c.; besides some very fine winter apples and pears, which have been admirably preserved. Of the former, the winter-queen, old green nonpareil, and golden harvey are conspicuous; of the latter, the warden and Uvedale's St Germain are fine. The most attractive feature of these shows appears to be the orchideous or air-plants, as they are popularly known. A greater number of persons are always collected round them than in any other part of the tents; nor is this to be wondered at. Nothing can be more singular in appearance or gorgeous in colouring. Their fragrance, too, is so delightful. Description can convey but a faint idea of their great beauty and diversity of character. They seem to mimic the insect world in the shapes of their blossoms; nor are the resemblances distant. Every one has heard of the butterfly-plant: there is one on the stage now before us, and as the breeze gently waves its slender stalks, each tipped with a vegetable butterfly, it becomes almost difficult to imagine that we are not watching the movements of a real insect flitting among the plants. Here is a spike of _Gongora maculata_, bearing no faint resemblance to a quantity of brown insects with expanded wings collected round the stem. Close to it are some _Brassias_, mimicking with equal fidelity insects of a paler colour, besides hundreds of others equally curious and beautiful. Some bear their flowers in erect spikes, or loose heads; others have drooping racemes a yard in length, as some of the _dendrobiums_. More have a slender flower-stalk making a graceful curve, with the flowers placed on the uppermost side, as _Pholaenopsis amablis_, which bears a profusion of white blossoms closely resembling large moths with expanded wings. Here are some remarkable plants we must not pass without noticing: they are equally attractive both by their beauty and associations. They are two plants of _Stanhopea tigrina_, exhibited by Her Majesty, and a fine specimen of _Acincta Humboldtii_, named in honour of the philosophic traveller. They are all worthy of the associations they call up; they grow in open baskets, and the flowers are produced from below, directly opposite the leaves. The ordinary law of flowering-plants is reversed in them.