1775 ARUNDO DONAX 291 



"Sept. 30. My Arundo donax, which I received from 

 Gibraltar, is grown this year 8 or 9 feet high. I therefore 

 opened the head of one stalk, to' see what approaches it 

 had made towards blowing after so hot a summer. When 

 it was cut open we found a long series of leaves enfolded one 

 within the other to a most minute degree, but not the least 

 rudiments of fructification : so that the plant must have 

 extended itself many feet before it could have attained to 

 its full stature, and must have many more weeks of hot 

 weather, before it could have brought any seeds to maturity." 



To the Rev. John White, Selborne, Octr. 4, 1775. 



Dear Brother, — From the hurry arising from a full house 

 while the Lyndon family were with me; and by means 

 of Mr. Thomas Mulso, who came as soon as they were gone 

 to Fy field, I find that your letter has lain unanswered for 

 three weeks. It is proper therefore to sit down now I 

 am alone, and answer your last before my friends return 

 from Fyfield. Mr. Barker sets out as this morning for 

 Northamptonshire, and takes his leave of Hants at my 

 brother Harry's house ; but the ladies and Sam return hither 

 on Friday, and Harry accompanies them, and stays with me 

 a few days. How long my Sister, &c., are to stay I cannot 

 yet say. 



Your Fauna, to which I think myself at least a foster- 

 father, is become, I hear with pleasure, a fine thriving child. 

 I could be glad to examine its features, and to dandle it, and 

 remark how it shoots up towards its ri\iKia\ but the old 

 difficulty of my Church stands still in my way, and is like to 

 prove as great a remora as usual: I am making enquiries 

 concerning some assistance, but can hear of nothing yet to 

 my satisfaction. No Grimm has yet appeared : the reason is 

 because he has been detained so long in Nottinghamshire. . . .* 



* A considerable part of this letter is missing. It continued with an 

 account, evidently copied from the foregoing entry, of the Anmdo donax. 



