246 CORRESPONDENCE. 
annual plants of California would have run wild, but as^et there is not much 
evidence of that. One instance has, however, lately come to my notice, 
that is, in the Thames Valley railway cutting near Twickenham, which for about 
a mile was decorated last year with the golden flowers of EscJischoltzia Call- 
fornica. We shall see whether it is able to establish itself permanently. 
Mr, Wilson informs me that Ulex Europceus has become wild in the Blue 
Mountains of Jamaica* ' Yours, etc., 
J. Smith, 
Park House, Kew, Ex- Curator, Royal Gardens, 
June 26, 1867. 
Dr. Beigel on Pleurococcus Beigeli. 
An attack upon me, evidently penned in haste, appears from the pen of Dr. 
Beigel, in the article on the " Chignon Fungus," with which the last number of 
your Journal opens, and I must ask you to be kind enough to let me make a 
few comments upon it. The attack has two aspects, personal and scientific. 
Dr. Beigel in the first place implies that all my knowledge of the fungus was 
derived from him, and that I have made use of information which he gave me, 
without acknowledgment. Why not have made the accusation boldly ? He 
says that, " on the last Wednesday of February I called upon that gentleman 
(Dr. Fox) and freely communicated to him what I had discovered, viz. that 
the parasite was not of animal but vegetable nature." That I knew already ; 
but he further observes that on the 2nd of March there appeared m the 
' Lancet' a letter which he quotes, and in which I remark, "I beg to send you 
some specimens of a fungus which I have found in large quantity on fa se 
hair," etc. Dr. Beigel evidently wishes your readers to infer that I got all 
knew from him. But why does he omit to state that when he called upon me 
I could not look at his preparations because my microscope was away at tt» 
» Lancet' office, whither I had taken it some days before, with specimens of tne 
fungus, to exhibit to the editor and others there ; specimens of the very fungus 
too, which he had brought to show me, and which I had already obtained troxa 
the very place whence his specimens came ? Dr. Beigel has never yet descn e 
the fungus himself, but quoted merely the opinions of German authorities, am , 
save his drawings, he shines in borrowed plumes ; yet he would make believe 
he has dispensed to me a mass of knowledge, whereas I differ from him in a in 
every particular. This is not plagiarism. We must have obtained the fuD 8 u ^^ 
pendently of each other somewhere about the same time, when so much s ve 
made about the matter of " chignons." By all means let Dr. Beigel be ^^.^ 
the discoverer ; but I utterly repudiate the idea that I made use of inform* ^ 
obtained from him, when, indeed, at the time he visited me, his stock ha ^ 
as yet arrived from Germany. So much for the personal question ; n0 * e§ 
the science. Dr. Beigel wishes it to be believed that I pronounced the oeu^ 
which he exhibited at the Pathological Society to be animal, because 1 
them H Gregarines." I had already, in the * Lancet ' the week before, s 
