BOTANY OF MOULMEIN. 105 



tification a half-cup and pedicelled. If I go to the south again, in two or 

 three months, I will secure specimens, whicli I shall be happy to send 

 you; kindly tell rae the best means of doing so. I ara most anxious 

 to know if this noble Fern is an undescribed species. When 3^ou have 

 leisure to attend to them, I should like to trouble you with some Ferns, 

 Mosses, and Jungermannice, 



There is a wonderful field open to discovery in this neighbourhood ; 

 but I am unfortunately so tied by my duties that I cannot collect and 

 explore as I should like ; a week or ten days is the utmost I can ever 

 command, and this is tantalizing, for the distances are great and the 

 difficulties of travellins: extreme. 



August 31, 1855. 



I have the pleasure to enclose a rather better sketch of the Platyce- 

 cermm than I sent before ; it conveys a tolerably correct idea of the 

 Fern, which is a truly magnificent species. If I go to Mergui, as I 

 hope, in October, I will get more specimens, for I know its precise 

 locality, on an aged veteran of a Lagerstroemia, a sight of itself, and 

 which is rendered strikingly beautiful by the numerous (twenty or 

 thirty) plants of this Fern which festoon it with their long, pendent, 

 and graceful fronds. But if I send you two growing specimens, it will 

 be as much as I can compass, for they are of no small size or light 

 weight, and, when accompanied by the bough to which they are at- 

 tached, each is a man's burden. How to dry specimens of it for the 

 herbarium is quite a problem to me ; its fronds are like leathern thongs, 

 and the cup which bears the sorus is as stiff as a leathern drinking- 

 cup. 



I have carefully examined the drawing of the plant from Moorce-it, 

 and am convinced it is a true and very beautiful Rhododendron. The 

 petals are pale rose-coloured, and the entire flower measures nearly four 

 inches across : it is said to be a large shrub. My own specimen looks 

 very sickly, and will not, I fear, bear the climate here. The seeds must 

 have been ripe when Captain Tickell drew it, for he represents the split 

 capsules, but he unfortunately collected none. 



Some time ago I gathered a beautiful Orchideous plant, with pink- 

 flowered spikes, something Uke a Hyacinth ; it grows on rocks about 

 twenty miles from hence. The specimens I brought home are flourish- 

 ing with me, and J would gladly send them, if you think the species \% 



VOL. VIII. 



V 



