i242 Linnean Society. [May 24, 



care-worn and haggard in his looks, often complaining of anomalous 

 symptoms, marked by an extreme rapidity of pulse, in consequence 

 of which he had left off wine for some years past, and was obliged 

 to observe great care and attention in his diet. In AfFghanistan he 

 was very nearly carried off by fever, to which he had been subject in 

 his former travels in Assam. No government ever had a more de- 

 voted or zealous servant, and I impute much of the evil consequences 

 to his health to his attempting more than the means at his disposal 

 enabled him to accomplish with justice to himself." 



The most important of Mr. Griffith's published memoirs are con- 

 tained in the Transactions of the Linnean Society. Previous to 

 starting on his mission to Assam, he communicated to the Society 

 the first two of a series of valuable papers on the development of the 

 vegetable ovulum in Santalum, Loranthus, Viscum, and some other 

 plants, the anomalous structure of which appeared calculated to 

 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 Vis- 



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

 Trans, xviii, p. 71. 



3. OatYi^OYVilnrQ. oi Santalum, OsyriSyLoranthtis^n^Viscum. Linn. 



Trans, xix, p. 171. 



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

 rasites referred by authors to Rhizanthece, 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 Balanophoreae, 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 



