xxvi LETTERS OF WILLIAM GRIFFITH. 



after found that it was Sahia. A, was cruelly vexed, yet he 

 was not more to blame than B. and C. who never allude in the 

 ordinal character to the anomalies Sabia presents. This should 

 be a warning in similar cases to persons who although they 

 may be right after all, yet cannot be sure of their not adding 

 needlessly to the synonymy of botany. The striking Mergue Plant 

 appear to me between Myrtacefe and Hypericineae : I am quite sure 

 that My rtaceae belong to the Cali/cose group. What a heretic you 

 will say ! I have oceans of materials for publication. Viz. Rhizantheae, 

 Suplement to Loranthus, including Osyris, in which most curious 

 anomalies occur, and on the Pistillum: this last will appear in 

 McClellands journal, the others will go to the Lin. Society. 



Malaccaf April i5th, 1842. 



I take the opportunity of the Clarissa sailing from this deserted 

 place, to write you a few lines, hoping to hear from you via Calcutta 

 before long, or I shall think all my botanical friends have deserted 

 me. 



I have just returned from a five days, trip twenty miles in the inte- 

 rior of our truly magnificent jungles, which I guess, will afford me 

 employment for two or three years ; probably more, as there will 

 be for the future only one Medico, 1. e. myself here, and I then of 

 course cannot be absent often, if at all. 



The more I see of the Malacca vegetation, the more I am delighted 

 and engrossed ; and had not Blume been so long in Java, I could 

 have turned up an infinite number of plants of the highest interest. 

 There is in fact a very great variety in Dicotyledons, especially 

 ligneous plants, more perhaps than any place 1 remember. The coun- 

 try presents several features, influencing its vegetation, but so far as 

 I know, it wants those dells and black ravines in which ferns abound 

 so much. Neither is it rich in Orchidese. The surface is gently 

 undulated, and altogether covered with soil. For, rocks with their 

 Orchidese, water falls, Ferns, and Lycopodiums, I must wait until I 

 can run up to Penang. 



I never hear now from any one in England, such is the advantage 

 of having one's plants distributed by others. I have not even 



