TO DR. R. WIGHT. 



XXXV 



see no chance of my succeeding to the Giirdens, I intend sending 

 away all my other collections, and devoting myself to this object, and 

 general developement, which is obviously the keystone of the arch. 



I am always in a hurry, and always should be, until settled down 

 in some permanent and suitable appointment. I have so many irons 

 to look after, and now have to edit, Voigts Hortus Suburbanus 

 Calcuttensus, a very valuable catalogue. 



Had I time I would endeavour to make it more complete by ad- 

 ding generic and ordinal characters in the form of foot notes This 

 would not perhaps be the best plan, but it would be the easiest, and 

 as in a catalogue, the names of plants are supposed to be known a 

 priori to enable one to consult it, the want of the usual clavis either 

 by a whole body of generic characters, or by those of the family 

 may be more excusable. I have just received the melancholy news 

 of the death by drowning of a very fine spirited nephew of mine, 

 of the 21st. Regiment N. I. now at Barrackpore. I must therefore 

 break off for the present. 



26th March, 1843 ^ 



It has been found that hybrids may be formed between Orchideae 

 of any of Lindleys sections ! This is fatal to his Orchid, classification ! 

 The seeds of these though they appear perfectly formed, have not 

 been made to germinate. Is not this startling ? and to what new 

 views of classification it may lead, who knows. But when you write 

 on Orchideae, eschew Lindley's arrangement, which sacrifices all to 

 one character, of the importance of which we know nothing. Ward 

 is my authority for the hybridising which has been done at Messrs. 

 Kollinsons. 



We are under some mistake about the Dryptopetalum. I ought 

 to have said that an objection to its being Rhzophoreou^ was its 

 having a superior ovary. Now Cunoniacese have both ovary inferior 

 and superior, so far so good. But I confess Cunoniacese to be a sink 

 for several singular things with opposite leaves and interpetiolar 

 stipulas. 



I see my character of Mackaya, as Modeccopsis has appeared in 

 the Annals of Natural History, entre nous. 1 do not like Arnott's 

 characters, nor do I think he has the tact of extracting and confining 

 himself to essentials. My own plan regarding the names without cha- 



