422 MISCELLANEOUS, 1850-18G0 
design in the construction of compound organs. I had a 
talk with Lindley the other day about axial placentation, 
and he immediately knocked me down with Schleiden's 
argument derived from the ovule of Taxus being absolutely 
solitary and terminating a branch — this vexed my soul ; 
for I confess to the most perfect distrust of Schleiden, which 
leads me to forget his writings, and I did, when reminded 
of it, remember his dwelling on that very point. After two 
days I modestly ventured to examine Taxus mj^self and 
behold, I found tivo ovules in every one of the first 3 
buds I opened, and neither terminal, and when only one 
occurred it was lateral. Each had a rudimentary scale 
like ovarium. So much for that argument. On the other 
hand I can quite understand such a congenital arrest of 
organs in Taxus as should result in an apparent terminal 
ovule, without maldng a special law in the Vegetable King- 
dom to account for it. I have also a monstrous Primula 
with parietal placenta and ovules ; the Pink or Carnation 
is another common case in point and so on, all new facts 
tend to reduce the exceptions to the carpellary theory and 
none cut the other way. 
I have commenced the V.D.L. Flora, and find it my fate 
to destroy species as I go on, and the more carefully I examine 
the more to fell ; on the other hand I am extremely gratified 
with the multitude of good, new^ and undescribed species 
in the Austrahan Flora. 
Passages may be quoted fi'om two letters to Henslow 
which are too long to give in full. Henslow, struck by 
an anomalous structure in Nelumbium and several curious 
points new to him, and unaware of the light thrown upon 
these points by many observers, had founded an explana- 
tion of them on the structure as it was before him, and 
had assigned not only Nelumbium, but Nymphaea, to the 
Monocotyledons. H Hooker had lately examined the germina- 
tion of all the genera, and his lively criticism was directed, 
not against the facts observed, anomalous though they 
were, but against the reasoning, where there was so much 
evidence, direct and indirect, to be reckoned with on the 
other side. 
