474 'DIFFERENT FORMS OF FLOWERS [1861. 



but no one can judge of evidence by merely hearing a 

 paper." 



The work on Primula was the means of bringing my 

 father in contact with tTie late Mr. John Scott, then working 

 as a gardener in the Botanic Gardens at Edinburgh, — an 

 employment which he seems to have chosen in order to 

 gratify his passion for natural history. He wrote one or two 

 excellent botanical papers, and ultimately obtained a post in 

 India.* He died in 1880. 



A few phrases may be quoted from letters to Sir J. D. 

 Hooker, showing my father's estimate of Scott : — 



" If you know, do please tell me who is John Scott of the 

 Botanical Gardens of Edinburgh ; I have been correspond- 

 ing largely with him ; he is no common man." 



" If he had leisure he would make a wonderful observer ; 

 to my judgment I have come across no one like him." 



'' He has interested me strangely, and I have formed a 

 very high opinion of his intellect. I hope he will accept 

 pecuniary assistance from me ; but he has hitherto refused." 

 (He ultimately succeeded in being allowed to pay for Mr. 

 Scott's passage to India.) 



*'I know nothing of him excepting from his letters ; these 

 show remarkable talent, astonishing perseverance, much 

 modesty, and what I admire, determined difference from me 

 on many points." 



So highly did he estimate Scott's abilities that he formed 

 a plan (which however never went beyond an early stage of 

 discussion) of employing him to work out certain problems 

 connected with intercrossing. 



The following letter refers to my father's investigations 

 on Lythrum,f a plant which reveals even a more wonderful 



* While in India he made some admirable observations on expression 

 for my father. 



f He was led to this, his first case of trimorphism by Lecoq's ' G^o- 

 graphie Botanique,' and this must have consoled him for the trick this 

 work played him in turning out to be so much larger than he expected. 

 He wrote to Sir J. D. Hooker : " Here is a good joke : I saw an extract 



