NELUMBIUM : A PARADOX 423 



3 Montague Villas, Richmond : January 24, 1865. 



Dear Henslow, — Thomson and I are aghast, and 

 horrified, and thunderstruck, and doubled up at your con- 

 clusions about Nelumbiaceae. Here have we just printed 

 off the result of the most long and patient study, of all the 

 characters of all the genera, from the embryo, germination, 

 rhizome, etc., etc., and come to a definite conclusion, that 

 all these are in all respects dicots ; and here you come 

 in, and examining dried seeds of Nelumhium alone, knock 

 all our results on the head, ruthlessly, remorselessly, 

 wickedly and wantonly, perhaps with mahce prepense ! 

 Only fancy, I have just printed 8 fages of arguments 

 to prove that all are Dicots, root, stock (root-stock), 

 and branch, leaf, flower and fruit ! This is a blow to 

 Flora Indica. Alas for Flora Indica, we shall go into 

 mourning. 



Joking apart, do you know that the point you have 

 settled (?) is the most difficult and most disputed in all 

 Systematic Botany, that it has occupied the attention of 

 observers from Malpighi to Trecul, Hook. fil. & Thomson ; 

 that D. C, Richard, Planchon, Gertner, Asa Gray, Lindley, 

 Henfrey, several Jussieus, and others have made a special 

 study of it, and that within this very few months Trecul 

 has pubhshed long essays on the subject ? Like every 

 other subject of, the kind it cannot be settled by an exami- 

 nation of one organ or series of organs, but requires a very 

 careful consideration of an immense number of facts in 

 the comparative anatomy of plants. . . . Whether right or 

 wrong in yom' supposition, you have, I assure you, good 

 2 months' reading and study before you would be justified 

 in pubhshing on the subject ; except indeed you have 

 discovered some very novel fact. Thomson's and my behef 

 is, that the resemblances to Monocots are pure analogies 

 and nothing more ; you must remember too that upon 

 whatever individual point you may be inchned to ground 

 your arguments in favour of Monocots, you have an enormous 

 mass of evidence in favour of Dicots to subvert, besides 

 the direct affinities with Pajpaveraceae, Berheridaceae, and 

 Banunculaceaef which I do not see how you are to get over. 

 This one fact should engender caution, that Nymphs, have 

 direct relations with these Orders, and none with any Orders 



