BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 151 



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botanist), about the Rafflesia Arnoldi. It is dated August 9. "In the 

 month of November of the past year, we have received from Bencoolen 

 rotten female flowers of R. Arnoldi, I cut the flowers, and found the 

 seeds just as Dr. Robert Brown has drawn them in his book on the 

 female flower and fruit of R. Arnoldi, 1844. I put these seeds under 

 the bark of the Cissus scariosa, and now we have many buds of the 

 Rafflesia, I believe fifty ; three of these are as large as a goose's egg, 

 and the reticular covering is burst in such a manner that you can see 

 the whole laciniae of the perianthium. When we know more I shall 

 write you. We now cultivate the Cissus in pots and tubs ; and when 

 they grow, we shall put the ripe seeds under the bark, and send them 

 to Holland." This is very interesting, for if it can be done with the 

 Rafflesia, it is probably practicable with the rest of the Rhizanthece ; 

 and I think I remember to have heard that even the Sicilian species is 

 not well understood. 



I suppose I shall have much that is new in my Borneo collections, 

 being nearly the first in the field ; and I certainly mean you to have 

 them first. I should be very much obliged if you could quickly send 

 me the names, so far as possible ; for I should like to send the living 

 plants to the Gardens, and by letting the hortulanus mark off his desi- 

 derata on your list, I can do so very conveniently, and without waste 

 of time or space. I send you drawings and descriptions, as well as I 

 could make them, of two plants which must be new. One is probably 

 a Barclaya, of which genus one only species is known, and that is not 

 my plant. The other is an Aroideous plant ; it will not come into any 

 genus except Ciyptocoryne, nor into that without a modification of the 

 generic character, therefore I hope it is new. 



In a walk the other day I got two very interesting plants, one an 

 aphyllous Burmanniacea {Gonyanthus, I think, but not tbe one described 

 by Blume, as this has the flowers tipped with yellow, and the root of 

 one little egg-sbaped tuber): I found very few plants, which were 

 growing in loam on the side of a brook, in a dense wood. The other 

 plant, which I believe is also new, was the Kayu Oulin, or Iron-wood 

 (the Balean of Sarawak), in flower. The flowers are very curious ; 



(T 



they seem to me something between Myristicacea and Jnonacete, bein 

 trifaciate and hermaphrodite on tbe one hand, and on the other having 

 a single one-seeded ovarium. Of the fruit I have seen only a decayed 

 seed ; it was a hard testa, about the size and shape of a turkey's egg, 



