4M Linncsan Society, 



throw light on this still obscure and difficult subject. These papers 

 are entitled as follows : — 



1. On the Ovulum of Santalum album. Linn. Trans, xviii. p. 59. 



2. Notes on the Development of the Ovulum of Loranthus and Fz's- 



cum ; and on the mode of Parasitism of these two genera. Linn. 

 Trans, xviii. p. 7 1 . 



3. On the Ovulum of Santalum, Osyris, Loranthus and Viscum. Linn. 



Trans, xix. p. 171. 



Another memoir, or rather series of memoirs, " On the Root- Pa- 

 rasites referred by authors to Rhizanthea, and on various plants re- 

 lated to them," occupies the first place in the Part of our Transac- 

 tions which is now in the press, with the exception of the portion 

 relating to Balanophorece, unavoidably deferred to the next following 

 Part. In this memoir, as in those which preceded it, Mr. Griffith 

 deals with some of the most obscure and difficult questions of vege- 

 table physiology, on which his minute and elaborate researches into 

 the singularly anomalous structure of the curious plants referred to 

 will be found to have thrown much new and valuable light. 



In India, on his return from his Assamese journey, he published in 

 the ' Transactions of the Agricultural Society of Calcutta,' a " Re- 

 port on the Tea-plant of Upper Assam," which, although for reasons 

 stated avowedly incomplete, contains a large amount of useful infor- 

 mation on a subject which was then considered of great practical im- 

 portance. He also published in the ' Asiatic Researches,' in the 

 * Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' and in the * Transactions 

 of the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta,' numerous valuable 

 botanical papers ; but the most important of his Indian publications 

 are contained in the ' Calcutta Journal of Natural History,' edited 

 jointly by Mr. MacClelland and himself. Of these it may be suffi- 

 cient at present to refer to his memoir " On Azolla and Salvinia,'* 

 two very remarkable plants which he has most elaborately illustrated, 

 and in relation to which he has entered into some very curious spe- 

 culations ; and his still unfinished monograph of " The Palms of Bri- 

 tish India," which promises to be a highly important contribution to 

 our knowledge of a group hitherto almost a sealed book to European 

 botanists. 



But the great object of his life, that for which all his other labours 

 were but a preparation, was the publication of a General Scientific 

 Flora of India, a task of immense extent, labour and importance. To 

 the acquisition of materials for this task, in the shape of collections, 

 dissections, drawings and descriptions, made under the most favour- 

 able circumstances, he had devoted twelve years of unremitted ex- 

 ertion. His own collections (not including those formed in Cabool 

 and the neighbouring countries) he estimated at 2500 species from the 

 J^hasiya Hills, 2000 from the Tenasserim provinces, 1000 from the 

 province of Assam, 1200 from the Himalaya range in the Mishmee 

 country, 1700 from the same great range in the country of Bootan, 

 1000 from the neighbourhood of Calcutta, and 1200 from the Naga 

 Hills at the extreme east of Upper Assam, from the valley of Hook- 



