BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
_ by a young man who is a clever draughts- 
man. Link is decidedly a man of great 
genius, who has observed much and well, 
not only in his study at home, but during 
the almost annual excursions he makes to 
the southward, to Spain, Italy, Greece, 
&c. At a party assembled at Professor 
Kunth's, he drew round him a circle of 
listeners, and entertained us the whole 
evening by his lively conversation. 
Professor Meyer, of whose Voyage 
round the World you may have seen the 
two first volumes, containing the historical 
narrative with short accounts of several 
new plants and animals, is now married 
and settled here. He has very lately com- 
pleted and published the third volume of 
his work, containing the Zoology, and is 
now occupied with the fourth or botanical 
portion. He has brought with him a con- 
siderable number of plants, chiefly from 
Chili and Peru, from the Sandwich Islands, 
from Manilla, and from Macao. The most 
curious are the Peruvian ones, in which 
country he ascended one of the high 
mountains. He gave me a set of his La- 
biate and Scrophularie and a few of the 
Peruvian alpine plants, which were new 
to me. He is also, as almost all the Bo- 
tanists here, engaged at the same time with 
physiological Botany, and especially on the 
subject of the external glands of plants, 
on which he is preparing a memoir, illus- 
trated with some very good drawings. 
“Professor Ehrenberg, the Egyptian 
traveller, has now quite given up Botany 
for microscopical Zoology, and is at this 
time following up his discovery of fossil 
animalcules, on which subject his works 
are highly esteemed here. 
“A young man of the name of Vogel is 
at work on Leguminose. He has published 
in the last number of the Linnea those of 
Chamisso's Voyage, amongst which you 
will See a new Californian genus allied to 
Hosackia, It is my Hosackia juncea, 
which you thought nearer Indigofera. 
Mr. Vogel, who had not yet seen my me- 
moir On Hosackia, considered the fruit 
(which Thad not seen) to justify the esta- 
"DS a new genus. He may be right. 
77 
He is now working upon Sello's Legumi- 
“NOS 
Ose. 
“T should here mention a young man 
who, though now absent, is much spoken 
of at Berlin, and thought highly of by M. 
De Humboldt. I mean Corda, who has 
made numerous physiological observations 
and drawings. He was living in great dis- 
tress at Prague, when M. De Humboldt, 
struck by some of his observations on Cy- 
cadee and Conifere, invited him to come 
to Prussia to examine and figure the Cyca- 
dec in the new Palm-house in the Pfauen 
Insel, and, since that, Count Sternberg has 
procured him a situation at Prague, by 
means of which he can support himself, 
but is still unable to publish much of the 
result of his microscopical observations, 
which M. de Humboldt speaks of as highly 
important, especially as illustrating the 
currents and molecular motions in living 
plants. I mentioned above, Wiegmann's 
Archiv. der Naturkund. It is a bimestrial 
periodical, of the size of the Linnea, chiefl 
devoted to Zoology, but which frequently 
contains also botanical papers, a very in- 
convenient arrangement both for Botanists 
and Zoologists. 
On leaving Berlin we stopped for a cou- 
ple of hours at the lovely Pfauen-Insel, or 
Isle of Peacocks, in the Havel near Pots- 
dam. It is near an English mile long, and 
belongs to the king, who has a curious kind 
of pied-a-terre, or shooting box, on it, and 
is laid out partly as a zoological, partly as 
a botanical garden. In the former depart- 
ment the animals are more remarkable for 
their fine state of health than for their 
number or variety. In the botanical de- 
artment, the Palm-house, built in 1830, 
to receive the Palms bought by the king 
at Paris, is very handsome, not perhaps so 
much for its exterior form, as for the inte- 
rior arrangement. In the centre is a La- 
tania in full vigour, above thirty feet in 
diameter in the spread of its foliage. The 
remainder is occupied by many fine Palms, 
Cycadee, Bambusas, Dracenas, &c. in- 
terspersed with lower plants: and what 
adds much to the beauty, is, the very 
tasteful manner in which the Passiflora 
