4 
Anything you can do to advise Mr. Nowack will be appreciated by 
H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, Mr. Nowack being an entire stranger in 
England. 
Yours, &c. 
(Signed) ArTHUR Eris. 
W. T. Thiselton Dyer, Esq., 
C.M.G., F.R.S., 
Royal Gardens, Kew. 
exhibition, however, which is directed to a commercial object is, for 
obvious reasons, not permitted in the Royal Gardens. Mr. Nowack was, 
however, perfectly willing to allow some of his plants to be deposited in 
phenomena have some substratum of truth at the bottom of them. 
H.I.H. the late Crown Prince Rudolph was no inconsiderable naturalist, 
and he must have thought that there was some prima facie case in 
favour of the weather plant. And the idea was not actually novel, as à 
in South 
* Writing at the end of last century Ruiz and Pavon} describe in some detail 
the sleep-movements of Porlieria hygrometrica a Chilian Zygophyllaceous plant. 
Porlieria is a plant with shrubby habit and pinnate leaves somewhat resembling a 
Mimosa. > following is a translation of the passage in question :—“ By day 
* leaves are awake, at night they sleep (as is the case in 1nany plants with pinnate 
* leaves); the primary and secon ioles are then strongly drawn toge 
* adhering to one another in pairs so that the plant a b 
* and, as it were, dried up. Ti 
“ first the day breaks fine, they begin to unfold and after two hours are completely 
ex ening, provi y begin 
+ Ruiz and Pavon. Systema veget, Fl. Peruvianae et. Chilensis. 1798. 
pp. 95 and 96, ae 
