/ET. 28.] JOURNAL. 179 



cure the flowers. Please lay an injunction upon Nut- 

 tall, that he publish no other Shortia, and I will do 

 the same to Hooker in a letter that I am now writing. 

 Indeed I think I will tell him some of its chief pecul- 

 iarities, and then give him leave to publish the extract 

 in the " Annals of Natural History " if he thinks it 

 worth while. 1 



I attended a meeting of the Institute this after- 

 noon. An election of a correspondent took place, 

 which ran very close between Charles Buonaparte and 

 Agassiz, but the latter carried it ! 



I must not forget to tell you about the Loganiaceous 

 plant from Florida, for so Decaisne, to whom I gave 

 leave to sacrifice a flower for drawing, has determined 

 it to be ; so Brown's hint is confirmed. There is 

 something rather queer about the style, which, as 

 Brown's " Prodronms " is not before me, I cannot say 

 is also the case in any of the subgenera or genera he 

 has indicated. 



Euploca, Decaisne says, is certainly apocyneous. 

 Nuttall, I believe, places it in Boraginese. 



April 9. I heard Mirbel lecture to-day, commen- 

 cing his course at the Sorbonne. He is a very good 

 and clear lecturer, of the colloquial sort, and illus- 

 trates very well by rapid sketches on the blackboard. 

 I believe you did not see him. In the contour of his 

 features and in expression he is a good deal like Dr. 

 Peters, except that his countenance is more attenu- 

 ated, his features small and very little prominent, and 

 his complexion light. At the Ecole de Medecine I 

 was not fortunate enough to hit the chemical profes- 

 sor. I heard a portion of a lecture in the anatomical 

 theatre, but soon came away. 



1 The rediscovery of Shortia in 1878 is described on p. 682. 



