Transactions of the London Horticultural Society. 83 



As soon as Mr. Knight discovered that one very sickly 

 plant wa.s the sole result of the first packet of seeds, he ob- 

 tained a second packet, from which six plants arose. " All 

 these afforded striped fruits; but the pulp of five was perfectly 

 white, and that of one, which possessed no merit, was deep 

 yellow, as in common melons ; and the fruit of almost every 

 plant differed, to some extent, in form and external colour. 

 The pulp of four of the varieties, which I retained, was per- 

 fectly white, and very tender, and the juice very abundant and 

 very sweet; but the pulp was not in any of them what I 

 could call melting." The melons produced by these plants 

 all burst before they became perfectly ripe ; but Mr. Knight 

 conceives this probably owing to giving water holding manure 

 in solution too abundantly, and till too late a period ; his 

 object being perfect seeds rather than perfect fruits ; and he 

 hopes that the imperfection of the pulp arose from the imper- 

 fect maturity of the fruit, in some degree at least. Mr. Knight, 

 expecting his six plants, raised at the second sowing, would 

 all produce perfectly similar fruits, employed the pollen of all 

 indiscriminately, but as the pulp of one of them was yellow and 

 worthless, he is doubtful of the character of the fruit which 

 may spring from the seeds produced. He has obtained pure 

 seeds of one of the white-fleshed varieties, but doubts the 

 permanence of the habits of these varieties, even from seeds 

 preserved free from hybridisement. 



20. Upon the Preparation and Management of Plants during a 

 Voyage from India. By N. Wallich, M.D. F.R.S. &c. Read 

 July 19. 1831. 



Dr. Wallich, during his residence in India, has " had 

 many opportunities of judging how far the various modes of 

 packing plants for their voyage to Europe are successful, or 

 otherwise;" and in his somewhat recent voyage to Europe, 

 by bringing with him a considerable number of living plants, 

 has had personal experience " of the gradual influence of 

 those successive changes of climate to which plants are ex- 

 posed during their transmission." He considers the condition 

 of the individual specimens to be transported a material point, 

 and one usually not enough attended to. " Very often plants 

 of tender age, or already weak and sickly, or grafts only 

 recently or imperfectly united to their stock, are crowded 

 together hastily into the travelling-cases, and put on ship- 

 board without being sufficiently rooted. These soon perish, 

 or become so sickly, that, if their lives hold through the 

 journey, they perish presently after ; it is, in consequence, 

 recommended that plants already advanced in age, with a 



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