The rapidity of growth is so great in this climate, that within eight months from the commencement of the improvements, a great change had already taken place. The grounds bore a park-like appearance; broad shady walks had replaced the narrow winding paths that ran in distorted lines over the ground, and a large Palmetum, or collection of tall and graceful palms of various kinds, occupied several acres at one side of the garden; whilst a still larger portion of ground was being appropriated to a picturesque assemblage of certain closely allied families of plants, whose association promised to form a novel and attractive object of study to the botanist, painter, and landscape gardener. This, which the learned Director called in scientific language a Thamno-Endogenarium, consists of groups of all kinds of bamboos, tufted growing palms, rattan canes (_Calami_), _Dracaenae,_ plantains, screw-pines, (_Pandani_, and such genera of tropical monocotyledonous plants. All are evergreens of most vivid hue, some of which, having slender trailing stems, form magnificent masses; others twine round one another, and present impenetrable hillocks of green foliage; whilst still others shoot out broad long wavy leaves from tufted roots; and a fourth class is supported by aerial roots, diverging on all sides and from all heights on the stems, every branch of which is crowned with an enormous plume of grass-like leaves.* [Since I left India, these improvements have been still further carried out, and now (in the spring of 1853) I read of five splendid _Victoria_ plants flowering at once, with _Euryale ferox,_ white, blue, and red water-lilies, and white, yellow and scarlet lotus, rendering the tanks gorgeous, sunk as their waters are in frames of green grass, ornamented with clumps of _Nipa fruticans_ and _Phoenix paludosa._] The great _Amherstia_ tree had been nearly killed by injudicious treatment, and the baking of the soil above its roots. This defect was remedied by sinking bamboo pipes four feet and a half in the earth, and watering through them--a plan first recommended by Major M`Farlane of Tavoy. Some fine _Orchideae_ were in flower in the, gardens, but few of them fruit; and those _Dendrobiums_ which bear axillary viviparous buds never do. Some of the orchids appear to be spread by birds amongst the trees; but the different species of _Vanda_ are increasing so fast, that there seems no doubt that this tribe of air-plants grows freely from seed in a wild state, though we generally fail to rear them in England.