IV 



NOTICE OF WILLIAM GRIFFITH, 



to his health to his attempting more than the means at his disposal 

 enabled him to accomplish with justice to himself." 



"The most important of Mr. Griffith's published memoirs are con- 

 tained in the Transactions of the Linnsean Society. Previous to 

 starting on his mission to Assam, he communicated to the Society 

 the first two of a series of valuable papers on the development of the 

 vegetable ovulum in Santalum, Loranthus, Viscum, and some other 

 plants, the anomalous structure of which appeared calculated to 

 throw light on this still obscure and difficult subject. These papers 

 are entitled as follows : — 



1. On the Ovulum of Santalum album. Linn. Trans, xviii. p. 57. 



2. Notes on the Development of the Ovulum of Loranthus and Vis- 



cum ; and on the mode of Parasitism of these two genera. Linn. 

 Trans, xviii. p. 71. 



3. On the Ovulum of Santalum, Osyris, Loranthus and Viscum. Linn. 



Trans, xix. p. 171. 



" Another memoir, or rather series of memoirs, " On the Root- 

 Parasites, referred by authors to Rhizanthece, and on various plants 

 related to them," occupies the first place in the Part of our Transac- 

 tions which is now in the press, with the exception of the portion 

 relating to BalanophorecE, unavoidably deferred to the next following 

 Part. In this memoir, as in those which preceded it, Mr. Griffith 

 deals with some of the most obscure and difficult questions of vege- 

 table physiology, on which his minute and elaborate researches into 

 the singularly anomalous structure of the curious plants referred to 

 will be found to have thrown much new and valuable light. 



" In India, on his return from his Assamese journey, he published in 

 the ' Transactions of the Agricultural Society of Calcutta,' a ' Re- 

 port on the Tea-plant of Upper Assam,' which, although for reasons 

 stated avowedly incomplete, contains a large amount of useful infor- 

 mation on a subject which was then considered of great practical 

 importance. He also published in the ' Asiatic Researches,' in the 

 ' Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' and in the ' Transactions 

 of the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta,' numerous valuable 

 botanical papers ; but the most important of his Indian publications 

 are contained in the ' Calcutta Journal of Natural History,' edited 

 jointly by Mr. MacClelland and himself. Of these it may be suffi- 

 cient at present to refer to his memoir " On Azolla and Salvihia," 

 two very remarkable plants which he has most elaborately illustrated, 

 and in relation to which he has Entered into some very curious specu- 



