244 KEW : 1879-1885 



of time to experiment on further species of pitcher plants, and 

 at sight of the * hopeless pile of literature to glance at ' accumu- 

 lating on his desk, he murmurs : ' The " intellectual activity " 

 of the age is horrid.' The release he desired was not from 

 work, but from uncongenial work, which would allow him to 

 take up the wider interests always to the fore in his corres- 

 pondence with Darwin. 



To Charles Darwin 



November 24, 1881. 



I must just thank you for the ' Movements/ which 

 seems a most capital production, and I am so pleased to 

 see Frank's name associated with yours in it. I have read 

 only two chapters, 7 and 8, and they are splendid, but I 

 hate the zigzags ! Bauhinia leaf -closing is a curious case ; 

 does it not show that said leaf consists of two leaflets ? 



The fact that for good action the leaves want a good 

 illumination during the preceding day is very suggestive 

 of experiments with the electric light. They are like the 

 new paint that shines only by night after sun-light by day. 

 There are heaps of points I should like to know more about. 



Dyer and Baker are taken aback by the keel of the 

 Cucurbita seed ; which keel was a wonderful discovery 

 in Welwitschia ! ! ! 



I have had no time to read more than the two chapters 

 as yet, for I have a stock of half -read books on hand and 

 no time for any of them. I am only two -thirds through 

 Wallace and it is splendid. What a number of cobwebs he 

 has swept away. That such a man should be a Spiritualist 

 is more wonderful than all the movements of all the plants. 

 He has done great things tgwards the explanation of the 

 New Zealand Flora and Australian, but marred it by assum- 

 ing a pre -existent S.W. Australian Flora I am sure that 

 the Australian Flora is very modern in the main, and the 

 S.W. peculiarities are exaggerations due to long isolation 

 during the severance of the West from the East by the 

 inland sea or straits that occupied the continent from Car- 

 pentaria to the Gt. Bight. I live in hopes of showing by 

 an analysis (botanical) of fhe Australian types, that they 

 are all derived from the Asiatic continent. Meanwhile I 



