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CHAPTER XIX. 

 On the Reproductive Organs of Acotyledonous plants. 



llth. — Fine weather, the sun daily increasing in power, is having 

 a remarkable effect on the peculiar spring vegetation, but this is not 

 sufficiently developed to bring in the corresponding birds and 

 insects. Gypaetos is common now about the dead camels. 



On the low east ridge, along the path that leads over the river, ruins 

 of ancient times are discernible, this only adds another to the many 

 proofs of similarly situated ruins, that the people who built them 

 have been located about Cabul, Jallalabad, and Peshawur, certainly 

 not about Candahar. 



In the soil between the rocks, and in their crevices saturated 

 with moisture, most of the plants are just sprouting. Trichonema, 

 Crocus, and one or two other monocotylydons, Labiatse ? Sedum three 

 or four species, exclusive of Sedoides foliis deltoides sphathulatis, 

 and a Stapelioid Asclepias, are to be found. I also got a new fern, 

 the fourth species out of 1,300 sp. it is a Ceterach or Grammitis, a 

 curious stalked snuff-ball, and one or two other Fungi, with an in- 

 verted cap, were met with. 



In the fields a young Ranunculus in profusion, Veronica agrestis, 

 Euphorbia, Festuca annua ? 



Kochia spinosa, and a curious Mathioloid are among the few wild 

 plants to be found about Pushut. 



It would be a curious circumstance if all indusiate ferns were to 

 be found reducible to a marginal production of the reproductive 

 apparatus. I will bear this in mind, as certain forms of Pteris or its 

 affinities lead me to suspect that in these tribes the indusium may 

 be a long way from the margin, and yet be, quoad origin, marginal ; 

 this section illustrates my meaning. 



The transition to this might reasonably be suspected. The philo- 

 sophy of ferns is most ill understood, the higher points connected 

 with them have been quite neglected, and botanists in this as in other 

 departments of the science have been contented to confer names on 

 certain external forms, without sufficient regard to structure. 



