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H. H. W. PEARSON, F.R.S., Sc.D. 
infested by the same kind of weevil as that which inhabits E. villosus. The 
development part of the work is a tremendous business. It seems to me that 
I ought to go on fixing and section-cutting about 10 years before I write.... 
I returned last night from the Karroo and the Cycad country having had a 
very successful time. I had a most interesting three days with Encephalartos 
Frederici-Guiliehni. It is coning freely now and most cones when I was 
there were on the eve of pollination. As a result of a great number of observa- 
tions I feel satisfied that in the case of a female plant cones are produced only 
once in six years and very frequently a longer period intervenes.... As to 
coning it looks as if the process taxes the plant very severely so that it has 
to rest for some years before it can again attempt to produce cones.. The 
first seed-bearing plants surely cannot have taken it out of themselves to this 
extent or they could never have left any descendants. Then it must be that 
these Cycads are a long way from the earliest Spermaphyta and have developed 
on not very sound lines. One defect that suggests itself to me is that they 
produce far too many seeds for the size of the plant, for instance one of these 
Encephalartos Frederici-Guilielmi plants produces easily more than 1500 
seeds in one season. When you think of the energy consumed in the rapid 
development of the cone... and the enormous quantity of carbohydrate stored 
away in the prothalli you cannot wonder that the plant feels a bit done up 
when all is over. Is there any evidence of the existence of herbaceous pterido- 
sperms or gymnosperms in Mesozoic times? If there have ever been such 
Gymuosperms is it not strange that they have left no descendants of similar 
habit?... Yet the first vascular plants must have been herbaceous. What 
I have in my mind is the idea that the conditions which called forth the 
Cycads, for example, may have been entirely different from those at present 
prevailing and quite unsuitable for the existence of small perennials and 
annuals. Suppose for example a set of conditions which resulted in rapid 
and luxuriant growth. Then the Cycads of to-day might be the straggling 
posterity of a race of giants, preserving under adverse conditions the prolific 
reproduction of forbears which could afford such generous habits without 
endangering their existence thereby. But I must not worry you any more. 
These Cycads are most fascinating things and they grow upon one. In the 
Eastern provinces I am rapidly acquiring a reputation for incipient imbecility 
for I am told that there never before was anyone in South Africa who would 
spend 4 days in the train in order to spend 3 days among the Palms.” Early 
in 1915 he wrote: “I do wish you coidd see my Cycads. The slope [in the 
National Garden] which, when you were here [July, 1914], harboured one 
specimen of Encephalartos Altensteinii, now holds 300 plants, representing 
possibly all the known and one hitherto unknown South African species.” 
It was near to this slope that Pearson was buried on November 4, 1916. 
Shortly after his arrival in Ceylon Pearson wrote: “I am at work on the 
