366 BOTANY [Chap. XI 



Letter 688 object to my publishing in Nature x some of the more striking 

 facts about the movements of plants, with a few remarks 

 added to show the bearing of the facts. The case of the 

 Phyllanthus, 2 which turns up its leaves on the wrong side, 

 is most extraordinary and ought to be further investigated. 

 Do the leaflets sleep on the following night in the usual 

 manner ? Do the same leaflets on successive nights move 

 in the same strange manner ? I was particularly glad to 

 hear of the strongly marked cases of paraheliotropism. I 

 shall look out with much interest for the publication about 

 the figs. 3 The creatures which you sketch are marvellous, 

 and I should not have guessed that they were hymenoptera. 

 Thirty or forty years ago I read all that I could find about 

 caprification, and was utterly puzzled. I suggested to 

 Dr. Criiger in Trinidad to investigate the wild figs, in 

 relation to their cross-fertilisation, and just before he died 

 he wrote that he had arrived at some very curious results, 

 but he never published, as I believe, on the subject. 



I am extremely glad that the inundation did not so 

 greatly injure your scientific property, though it would have 

 been a real pleasure to me to have been allowed to have 

 replaced your scientific apparatus. 4 I do not believe that 

 there is any one in the world who admires your zeal in 

 science and wonderful powers of observation more than I 

 do. I venture to say this, as I feel myself a very old man, 

 who probably will not last much longer. 



P.S. — With respect to PJiyllantJias, I think that it would be 

 a good experiment to cut off most of the leaflets on one side of 

 the petiole, as soon as they are asleep and vertically dependent ; 

 when the pressure is thus removed, the opposite leaflets will 

 perhaps bend beyond their vertically dependent position ; if 

 not, the main petiole might be a little twisted so that the 

 upper surfaces of the dependent and now unprotected leaflets 

 should face obliquely the sky when the morning comes. In 

 this case diaheliotropism would perhaps conquer the ordinary 

 movements of the leaves when they awake, and [assume] their 

 diurnal horizontal position. As the leaflets are alternate, and 



1 Nature, March 3rd, 1881, p. 409. 

 8 See Letter 687. 



3 F. Miiller published on Caprification in Kosmos, 1882. 



4 See Letter 687. 



