TO DR. R. WIGHT. 



XXV 



the subject for some time and intend completing niy notes as I go 

 down the Ganges. 



I'unica is an old friend of mine : it belongs to an order with 

 Duabanga and Sonneratia between Myrtaceae and Lythracea : but 

 it is 6-7 carpellary leaved, this I have known since 1837 from ex- 

 amination at very young periods. Although I have reduced it to the 

 ordinary type, I have not satisfactory explained how the subsequent 

 anomalies come into play. 



In your paper on Cucurbitacese I am sorry to observe you have not 

 left any loopholes to get out by, which in theoretical arguments, is al- 

 ways advisable. I suppose Arnott has superseded me in all of my 

 genera : it is a good plan in some respects, yet a bad one in others, 

 to postpone publication. 



I am heartily glad to hear that you have reduced the genera of 

 Myrtaeese ; depend upon it, that one-third of our present genera are 

 temporary. Botanists don't know that a plurality of marks is required 

 for agenus, a deviation from any one or two of these, will only con- 

 stitute a subgenus, not a genus. I should like to see how any one 

 could prove a terminal leaf, it is imposible from any existing analogy, 

 nor do I see how your idea of Cucurbitacese bears upon it : because 

 their being reversed in situation, does not alter our ordinary ideas of 

 the axis. 



As you say, botany is difficult, and increasingly so, but Botanists 

 are to blame for this. No remedy will be so effectual as the pub- 

 lication of Monographs ; look at the enormous labour of synonymy. 

 Botanists have no business to subdivide, none to describe a species 

 in a corner without giving its place. Were I to make any thing of 

 Compositse I would not undertake its synonymy, but endeavour 

 to destroy all that is useless of such tedious documents. Gene- 

 ric characters as they now stand are generic discriptions, instead of 

 being what their name imports ; the practice of thus stringing to- 

 gether long descriptions instead brief characters requires no elimi- 

 nation, hence all young hands will keep them up. It is redi- 

 culous to see beginners publishing an order. A striking instance 

 of this recently fell under my own observation. A. found a plant 



called Rhamnus by B., with all the perianth divisions 



and stamina opposite, and two Carpells. He called it 



and established tiacete, sends it for publication,- and sometime 



d 



