TO DR. R. WIGHT. 



xxi 



do, as I know one or two persons who collect for me, whom I wish 

 to shew on to study Botany. Will you therefore so manage that 

 they may reach my agents in January, with your bookseller's ac- 

 count. By that time I hope to be in Calcutta. Lindley's group 

 Albuminosce is as you say, all erroneous ; he has in this instance 

 swerved in his own principles, which are never to rely on a solitary 

 character, but many of his Alliances are good. There is a good 

 deal in what he says of Anonacese and Myristicese, but his view of 

 Hyalostemma is wrong, I know the genus well. The group is 

 a most unnatural one, and inexcusably so far as the separation of 

 Menispermese goes, because Wallich's Tentamen would have told 

 him the structure of the seed in Stauntonia. There are many other 

 points in your letters for notice, but I have no room left, except to 

 assure you etc. 



Kudjah : June 29th 1840, 



The greatest pleasure I have is in writing to Botanists. I now 

 proceed, to answer the other parts of your letter, I am sorry to 

 find you are so overworked : you did quite right with the Legumi- 

 nos£e, and in addition to your reasons, I will add another, which 

 weighs heavily on Indian Botanists, viz, that nothing satisfactory 

 can be done by an Indian Botanists in any family, the great bulk of 

 which is not Indian, for nothing can be more evident than this, 

 that if all our knowledge is derived from species, that knowledge 

 can be little if confined to 500 out of 3,500 species. Leguminosje is a 

 fine family for investigation on Macleayan principles, because DC*s. 

 grand divisions are prima facie wrong, besides founded on an ob- 

 scure character, and one not verifiable in the majority of cases ; you 

 will see how beautifully the order is divided into and grand divi- 

 sions, of which true Papilionaceae are typical, Cffisalpineas sub Ty- 

 pical, and Miraoseae aberrant : most would say the last are typical, 

 being most perfect, because they have a regular corolla, but I have 

 little doubt that irregularity is in many cases a test of perfection, 

 not irregularity of suppression, but of form. Of Swartziea I know no- 

 thing. The fifth division is yet to be found out. I quite agree with 

 you about Terebinthaceje being misplaced in DC. Prod. etc. but I do 



