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398 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
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constantly at them, first grouping them into their natural 
Orders and Genera, and then comparing them, species by 
species, with those in the Doctor's Herbarium. By this 
means, together with the use of his valuable and exten- 
sive botanical library, we were enabled to ascertain which are 
. new species, and to name those that had already been des- 
eribed. From the materials in this collection, and in that 
made by the accomplished Mrs. Col. Walker, which you so 
kindly presented me with previous to my departure from Eng- 
land, together with what I have collected since my arrival, and 
still hope to accumulate, I trust to be able, in the course of a 
very few years, to prepare for publication a Flora of the 
island, worthy of the richness and beauty of its vegetation, 
and of the encouragement afforded me both by the home and - 
local government. This, however, as you are well able to 
judge, will be a work of no little labour, as it must contain 
descriptions of from four to five thousand species, being 
considerably more than half of all the plants defined by 
Linnæus in the last edition of his * Species Plantarum.’ : 
In the course of our evening walks or drives, I always - 
contrived to pick up a few specimens of those plants | 
which are indigenous to the plains of India, or at least 
to the Peninsula. Several of them are of great botanical 
interest. Thus, in a large tank near Dr. Wight’s house, 
Vallisneria spiralis grows in the utmost abundance, along 
with its near ally Hydrilla Roxburghii. In hedges and 
bushy places, the Azima tetracantha, Lam., is very com- 
mon. This, like many other genera of imperfectly known 
structure, has been bandied about from Order to Order, and, — 
wandering-Jew-like, has been hitherto unable to find a place 
of rest. An investigation which we instituted with regard to 
its structure and affinities yielded us much satisfaction. - 
We both sat down to examine it, and, unknown to each | 
other, arrived at the same conclusion, viz.: that it forms 
the type of a new Order, intermediate between Oleacee and 
Jasminacee. We have drawn up a conjoint memoir on the - 
