THE NEW BOTANY AND THE OLD 279 



and Micro -phytology. I may content myself with a casual 

 grin at young men calling themselves botanists, who know 

 nothing of plants, but the ' innards ' of a score or so. The 

 pendulum will swing round, or rather back, one day. 



I have no copy of Fl. B. I. here, but look forward with 

 amusement to seeing what I have written on page 893. 

 I often muddle in press what I have written clearly enough 

 on paper. I look with great dissatisfaction on Piperaceae, 

 Laurineae and Myristaceae, but think I may with different 

 feelings on Polygonaceae and the reforms in Loranthaceae. 



... I enjoy my freedom from harness more than ever, 

 though so much poorer. They have given me a shabby 

 pension from Kew, reducing what would otherwise have 

 been given as a ' special award ' because of my Naval Pension ! 

 though this was awarded for services rendered three years 

 before I became Asst. Director. ... I shall have to econo- 

 mize for the next few years and work as I have done (and 

 liked). . . . However I am well, happy and contented, 

 and have been a most fortunate man in family, friends, 

 launch into life, and opportunities, and if my income is not 

 so good as my father's was, it is because I have had such 

 a family to educate and support otherwise I should have 

 been wealthy. 



As to the extremes of the New Botany, the * casual grin ' 

 recurs in his letter of the 22nd to Professor Oliver, whose son 

 Frank he hopes will decide to take up botany. 



When settled he would not be disinclined I think to 

 take up a large Genus in a small Nat. Ord. I should like 

 him to attack one with minute flowers, like the Phyllanthi 

 I am at, the male flowers of which are often not 1 /40 in. 

 diam. they might delude him into the belief that his work 

 was histological ! and nothing but the very minute seems 

 worthy of the attention of the modern school. 



Similarly, a couple of years later, writing to a young botanist 

 about the possibility of standing for a professorship, he 

 remarks : 



There is already a strong feeling apparent, that vegetable 

 physiology and anatomy alone do not supply the wants of 

 the public and that some knowledge of plants in general, 



