NELUMBIUM : A PAEADOX 423 
3 Montague Villas, Richmond : January 24, 1855. 
Dear Henslow, — Thomson and I are aghast, and 
horrified, and thunderstruck, and doubled up at your con- 
clusions about Nelumbiaceae. Here have we just printed 
off the result of the most long and patient study, of all the 
characters of all the genera, from the embryo, germination, 
rhizome, etc., etc., and come to a definite conclusion, that 
all these are in all respects dicots ; and here you come 
in, and examining dried seeds of Nelumhium alone, knock 
all our results on the head, ruthlessly, remorselessly, 
wickedly and wantonly, perhaps with malice prepense ! 
Only fancy, I have just printed 8 ])ages of arguments 
to prove that all are Dicots, root, stock (root-stock), 
and branch, leaf, flower and fruit ! This is a blow to 
Flora Indica. Alas for Flora Indica, we shall go into 
mourning. 
Joking apart, do you know that the point you have 
settled (?) is the most difficult and most disputed in all 
Systematic Botany, that it has occupied the attention of 
observers from Malpighi to Trecul, Hook. fil. & Thomson ; 
that D. C, Richard, Planchon, Gertner, Asa Gray, Lindley, 
Henfrey, several Jussieus, and others have made a special 
study of it, and that within this very few months Trecul 
has published long essays on the subject ? Like every 
other subject of the kind it cannot be settled by an exami- 
nation of one organ or series of organs, but requires a very 
careful consideration of an immense number of facts in 
the comparative anatomy of plants. . . . Whether right or 
wrong in your supposition, you have, I assure you, good 
2 months' reading and study before you would be justified 
in pubHshing on the subject ; except indeed you have 
discovered some very novel fact. Thomson's and my behef 
is, that the resemblances to Monocots are pure analogies 
and nothing more ; you must remember too that upon 
whatever individual point you may be inchned to ground 
your arguments in favour of Monocots, you have an enormous 
mass of evidence in favour of Dicots to subvert, besides 
the direct affinities with Pajpaveraceae, Berberidaceae, and 
Banunculaceae, which I do not see how you are to get over. 
This one fact should engender caution, that Nymphs, have 
direct relations with these Orders, and none with any Orders 
