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CHAP. II. LETTERS FROM THE CAPITAL. 45 five months into the interior, and I willingly left a plant in the botanic gardens there. Since my return to England, I have had much satisfaction in presenting specimens of this rare plant to the Eoyal Gardens at Kew, to the gardens of the Hor ticultural Society at Chiswick, and to those at Regent’s Park, and to the Crystal Palace. The plants at these places, especially those at Kew, appear to thrive remarkably well, the leaves being equal in size and beauty to any which I saw in Madagascar. Among a few comparatively small plants which I grew in a glass milk- pan, with hut a small depth of earth, one flowered during the past summer. The seed ripened quickly, and fell upon the earth at the bottom of the pan, where it soon germinated, and in the same pan with the parent plant seven or eight young seedling plants are growing with pale green leaves half an inch long. The length of the leaf-stalks seems to be regulated by the depth of the water; when this is shallow these are short, as seen in the annexed engraving, hut when the water is deep the stalks are long, as represented by the single leaf on the side. The leaves are always just beneath the surface, hut the flower-stem rises above the water. Sir W. J. Hooker published a minute scientific description of the ouvi- randra, and a figure of the plant, in the “ Botanical Journal,” very soon after the plant had been brought to England. Fifteen days after our letters had been sent to the capital of Madagascar, we heard that answers had been received. On the following morning, having been invited to receive com munications from the officers of the government, the captain of our vessel, Mr. Cameron, and myself, went to M. De Las- telle’s, where we met the chief judge, the harbour master, the chief of the customs, and other officers, and partook of a most sumptuous breakfast provided by our host. After breakfast the chief judge delivered to the captain the answers of the queen to the memorial of the merchants at Mauritius, for