CORRESPONDENCE. 149 
just the way to blend all together, to repress all salient characteristics. 
as fast'as the mysterious process of variation originates them, and fuse _ 
the whole into a homogeneous form. 
We will also remark (in reference to p. 236, line 31, and p. 238, 
line: 3 e£ ség., of the above-mentioned review) that the Chestnut does 
exhibit manifest rudiments of stamens in its pistillate flowers ; also 
that, on morphological grounds, we should look upon hermaphroditism, 
rather than the contrary, as the normal or primary condition of flowers, 
and inquire how and why so many became diclinous, rather than “ how 
and why they ever became hermaphrodite.” Forms which are low in 
the scale as respects morphological completeness may be high in the 
scale of rank founded on specialization of structure and functions.— 
From the American Journal of Science and Art, xxxiv., with corrections 
by the Author. 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
Vegetation about Cape Arid, South-west Australia. 
King George's Sound, January 31, 1863. 
By the last mail-steamer I forwarded to Sir William J. Hooker a box con- 
taining some roots of the monster Macrozamia, which I procured at Cape Arid 
last November, and had conveyed to this place in a boat which happened to be 
on its way hither. I hope they will arrive safe and do well. I have made a 
trip to the Russell ranges, which bear about north from Cape Arid fifty miles, 
but on two occasions was compelled to retreat to the coast from want of water. 
bei 
the extreme, vegetation stinted, and no timber, only a patch of Casuarinee of 
about twenty-five square miles. I was much disappointed, expecting to make 
a rich collection in a country where no collector had ever been. 
GEORGE MAXWELL. 
Explosion of the Pods of Acanthus mollis. — 
^ Rye Lane, Peckham, April, 1863. 
All the circumstances that. led. to the production of so remarkable a work 
as Goethe's Essay on the Metamorphosis of Plants, a work much more talked 
about than known, have a special interest. I may therefore be allowed to 
call your attention to a passage from Goethe’s history of his botanical studies, 
and which has also reference to the fact mentioned by Mr. Smith, at p. 74 of 
