BOTANY [CHAP. XI 



Letter 719 I am delighted to hear that you are at work on Nepenthes, 

 and I hope that you will have good luck. It is good news 

 that the fluid is acid ; you ought to collect a good lot and 

 have the acid analysed. I hope that the work l will give you 

 as much pleasure as analogous work has me. I do riot think 

 any discovery gave me more pleasure than proving a true act 

 of digestion in Drosera. 



Letter 720 To J. D. Hooker. 



Down, Nov. 24th, 1873. 



I have been greatly interested by Mimosa albida, on which 

 I have been working hard. Whilst your memory is pretty 

 fresh, I want to ask a question. When this plant was most 

 sensitive, and you irritated it, did the opposite leaflets shut 

 up quite close, as occurs during sleep, when even a lancet 

 could not be inserted between the leaflets ? I can never 

 cause the leaflets to come into contact, and some reasons 

 make me doubt whether they ever do so except during sleep ; 

 and this makes me wish much to hear from you. I grieve to 

 say that the plant looks more unhealthy, even, than it was at 

 Kew. I have nursed it like the tenderest infant ; but I was 

 forced to cut off one leaf to try the bloom, and one was 

 broken by the manner of packing. I have never syringed 

 (with tepid water) more than one leaf per day ; but if it dies, 

 I shall feel like a murderer. I am pretty well convinced that 

 I shall make out my case of movements as a protection 

 against rain lodging on the leaves. As far as I have as yet 

 made out, M. albida is a splendid case. 



I have had no time to examine more than one species 

 of Eucalyptus. The seedlings of LatJiyrus nissolia are very 

 interesting to me ; and there is something wonderful about 

 them, unless seeds of two distinct leguminous species have 

 got somehow mingled together. 



Letter 721 To W. Thiselton-Dyer. 



Down, Dec. 4th, 1873. 



As Hooker is so busy, I should be very much obliged if 

 you could give me the name of the enclosed poor specimen of 



1 Hooker's work on Nepenthes is referred to in Insectivorous Plants^ 

 p. 97 : see also his address at the Belfast meeting of the British 

 Association, 1874. 



