xxxiv 



LETTERS OP WILLIAM GRIFFITH. 



Did I ever tell you of my having a Lardizabaleus genus with 

 pinnated leaves. I have seen only the male, I am sorry to say. It is 

 quite opposed to your view of Cucurbitaceous structure, and yet 

 quite in accordance with Coccinea Indica in its earliest stages. 

 Depend upon it there is nothing so constant as the direction of 

 leaves : under every form and shape, the margins when rolled up, are 

 always towards the axis. Whenever they are not so apparently, 

 we can trace the reason, as in Alstromeria and Caprifoliaceous 

 ovula. Then again you have an instance of an inferior ovarium, 

 a great obscuring cause, which you must investigate and clear up 

 before you can pass on to the carpel-leaves. The only anomaly I 

 know in Cucurbitacea, is something about the stigmata in the ear- 

 liest stages of developement. 



March, 23, 1843. 



The drawing is in hand, and will be accompanied by a specimen 

 of Conv. reticulatus of the gardens, but this does not authenticate it. 

 Of Conv, elegans, no specimens exist, and the species, itself is perhaps 

 very doubtful, Of Mappa and Macaranga I know nothing, but 

 Euphorbiaceae would repay original enquiry. Without doubt your 

 Podostemon sent appears to me to be two species, both very distinct 

 from our three eastern ones, and the caulescent one is very inter- 

 esting. If you are going to publish them and will give me time, 

 I will make sketches of them, and of our three, so that you can 

 bring the whole genus into notice at once. When you do so, 

 correct Lindley in considering them allied to Piperacese. What 

 curious plants they are, they are regular flower-bearing Hepaticse, 

 and quite destroy the point and meaning of such terms as Exogenous 

 and the like. 



I am absorbed in Salvinia and Azolla ; these microscopic enquiries 

 are very tedious, and when one has laid hold of the main points, 

 the working the thing up continuously is very laborious. I travel 

 out of my way to Chara and Marsilea, M. Fabre's account of which 

 last is all beside the subject, as I long ago said, 



I have now materials for illustrating the development of Isoetes, 

 Psilotum, Marsilea, Salvinia, Azolla, Musci and Hepaticae, and when 

 I have finished Lycopods, and Filices, I would like to be out with a 

 work on Indian Cryptogaraia of higher forms ; so much so, that if I 



