166 wight's botanical letters. 



sible to be destroyed, wlien once it has established itself in a 

 field. 



On the whole, my collections since my return, may amount 

 to between four and five hundred species, although I have 

 been very select. I expect before I arrive at Courtullum to 

 have a thousand or fifteen hundred. I have not met with 

 many here yet, and do not expect many, as for want of rain 

 the season is unfavourable to vegetation; but I discovered 

 some pretty good ones this morning in a long and most 

 fatiguing excursion, which kept me out till past mid-day. 

 Among these, are a little Linaria, and a beautiful Euphorbia, 

 a new grass like Poa disticha, but certainly different. — 1 am 

 now preparing for an active botanizing campaign between 

 this and Palamcottah (N. lat. S° 42', E. long. 11° 50), near 

 Courtallum ; and expect in the course of it to lay in a large 

 stock of specimens, as it is my intention in the course oi 

 the march to collect all and sundry, the better to enable me 

 to supply specimens, and to allow me more time to pick and 

 choose, when I shall visit Courtallum and the neighbouring 

 hills. I find that I shall require to make up five or six sets 

 for distribution in this country. 



In my last, I wrote about an Indian Medical Botany for 

 which I am collecting materials. I purpose giving outline 

 figures of all the plants, arranged according to our Prodro- 

 muss the medical portion of the work is to be the joint pro- 

 duction of the Secretary to the Medical Board and myself, 

 and in the mean time I have been drawing up a paper on 

 Calotropis gigantea^ and procera. Ham., as a sort of pattern 

 specimen of the intended work, 



Palamcottah, 5th March, 1835. 

 I have now three collectors hard at work, one here, and 

 two in the hills about Courtallum and in Malabar. I expect 

 from these sources many new things. I have already received 

 some of which I had not specimens before, Pkaseohis rostra- 

 tus for example, and several others which I do not now recol- 

 lect ; but upon the whole my assistant here does not add much 



