Wight's botanical letters. 187 



books of reference; but as figures are to be given, less harm 

 will be done if I go wrong. Of the plants which you write 

 me to procure for you, Epithynia, and its twin-brother in 

 appearance Lumniizera, I have not yet seen either, except 

 at one place in Ceylon, and then I had no means of pre- 

 serving a single specimen : of Carallia I have specimens I be- 

 lieve from Courtallum, but at all events I found some young 

 flower-buds yesterday. I have found two or three Ilhizo- 

 phorecE since I came here. I mentioned to you that I had 

 all Roxburgh's Coromandel plants (with the exception of one 

 or two that seem to have been accidentally omitted,) copied 

 or traced : I have got the same done with Wallich's Plant, 

 Asiat. Rar., and intend to have also his Tentamen Fl. Nepa- 

 lensis done by and by. These being all arranged, are very 

 convenient for reference ; they form only two moderate 

 volumes and are easily carried about. I almost incline to 

 employ a person, if I can get one, to trace the Hortus JMala- 

 baricus, for the sake of arranging the plates in a mode suit- 

 able for being consulted, which they are not now. Wallich 

 has returned from the Assam trip, but not Griffith : the lat- 

 ter in his last letter remarks — " I don't think I have any 

 thing new to tell you, except that the hard part of the fruit 

 of Cocculus (I mean) Cissampelos is a pyrena not a pidamen. 

 i. e., it is testa not endocarpium. This you may rely on, as 

 also, that it is the only case in which the placental suture is 

 anticous." Again he says, " Only fancy, 1 have been dab- 

 bling in Composites and am prepared to prove that the fruit 

 is not an achenium {Cypsela, Lindl.;) neither is that the testa 

 which encloses immediately the embryo; the true testa is 

 in almost every instance I have examined adherent to the 

 ovarium." I do not know the value of this piece of anatomy, 

 not having yet had an opportunity of repeating the dissec- 

 tions; but if you find it important, and if he is right, (and this 

 is the first explanation given of the true structure,) give him 

 the credit which he deserves. So far as I am acquainted with 

 the subject I do not see what is to be gained by the discovery, 

 ''apposing it to be one; but others may think differently. 



