SIR JOSEPH HAEKS. 
I l6 
Uj)on the whole there is surely no such thing as Natural Orders in nature, and 
my scepticism would lead me a step further, but to confine myself to the former 
))osition, I have sometimes been inclined to j)ut together my thoughts on this 
subject, which from what I have already said you are probably not at all impatient 
to see. and I should then take Rrunonia for my principal illustration, for whatever 
natural order it is put to it will certainly j)revent the order from being defined. 
But to conclude, if after weighing what has been already said you should be 
inclined to hesitate, pray let me entreat you as a Scotchman not to prove my 
relationship to Scabiosa, for after all if I had but the colour of sulphur I might 
stand some chance of getting rid of that connection. 
As I have communicated that part of your letter which relates to Wahlenberg’s 
remarks to Mr. Dryander, who desires his remembiances, and to sa}’ that as his 
only wish is to have the observations, which he conceives important, preserved 
in a respectable publication, he thinks he cannot better provide for them than 
by finding them a place in the work you are now preparing; he will therefore 
give uii his former intention of publishing them immediately, and as being quite 
new in the country they will perhaps be somewhat more acceptable to you. 
The translation is at present in my possession, for I had formerly solicited 
Ml'. D.* for leave to pre.sent it for reading to the L. (Linnean) Scy. in the event 
of dearth of original matter, but as the society have at present food enough for 
two or three meetings, and as something else may be reasonably expected. I shall 
send it to you in a few days that you may judge how far it will suit your i)ubli- 
cation. 
As to the supposed author of Proteacea?,t I scarce know what to think of him, 
except that in affinity he stands between a rogue and a fool, and he appears to 
me sometimes to lean to the one family and sometimes to the other, for I do not 
deny that he has a considerable share of acuteness, but I think he is in most cases 
almost totally destitute of judgement, the little that he has being chiefly expended 
in grafting his lies upon a stock of truth — this is an expression of Lord Kain, 
but not unsuitable to a secretary of the Horticidtural Society. 
The stock, however, he now and then mistakes, of which I have lately met with 
a whimsical instance. C'avanUles, in describing a species of Banksia, had on the 
authority of the carpenters of Malaspina’s ships, called it “ arbor 30 jwdes alta,” 
and this is all he says of its height, but as on the same authority he has compared 
the tree to an oak, the aforesaid secretary thought he might very safely call it a 
tree 30 feet high or more, and as it has been but lately introduced into this countrj^ 
he thought there was sufficient grounds for roundly asserting that it grew at some 
distance off from the settlement of Port Jackson. Xow what do you suppose 
is the real state of the case, the tree 30 feet high or more is a shrub generall}’ of 
3 or 4 feet, but nev’er exceeding, and not to say equalling at some distance from 
Port Jackson. I suppose the author would, after learning the truth, tell me he 
meant by sjme the minimum possible ; for it absolutely grows in the town of 
Sydney, and I have never met with it at any tlistance. 
HookerX to Brown. Halesworth, March 21, 1810. 
I have lately been examining all 1113 ^ foreign Jungermanni® for the purpose of 
ascertaining whether or not I could discover in any of their fructifications some- 
thing analogous to the situation of the Calyptra in your New Holland species, 
but I am not able to find an\’thing like it. In two or three Xew Zealand species 
I can find no Calyptra at all. On the Calyptra of our J. epiphylla, the little styles 
or pistilliform bodies proceed from all parts of it, but the insertion of the Calvptra 
is the same as in other species. A similar Calyx to what you observe in 3 ’our 
X^ew Holland species, I think you will find also in J. adunca Dicks., J. scalaris. 
* Probably Dryander, wlio died this year (1810). 
t R. A, Salisbury. See footnote to p. 114. 
I .\fterwards Sir \V. J. Hooker, Director of Kew. 
