The present catalogue, which was prepared during the summer 1903, by order of Sir Thomas Hanbury, K. C. V. O., is a list of plants growing wild at La Mortola. Some of the numerous visitors, who come to see the gardens are often not less interested in these than in those luxuriant exotic plants which are cultivated here.
The rich vegetation is due to the great variety of locality that exists. There are dry steep rocks, deep and fertile soil, bare sunny banks, shady and woody places, waterchannels, the bed of a torrent and the sea shore.
The subsoil is almost entirely limestone, in many places rich in fossils. Sand occurs only in one isolated spot close to the garden entrance, but it contains chalk as well and does not influence in any way the wild vegetation.
La Mortola, Ventimiglia, Italy; April 1905.
