21 June 1911 The Camp, near Sunningdale.
My dear Ridley,
I am delighted to find by your paper in The Gardener's Chronicle that you have solved the problem that has so long exercised my imagination viz. the delimitation of the Burmese Malayan Peninsula botanical frontiers: as also the Siamese with both. This grand hiatus is now closed & your account of it is full of interest & novelty. I also hope that it will be republished with full details & a really good map. It will be long I fear before the Siamese flora is delimited all round; it is I fear a desperately unhealthy climate & probably a

member of the Indo-Chinese flora with Burmese, Chinese, & Malay Peninsular frontier elements. You will be surprised to see the Kew Bulletin descriptions of two Malay Peninsular Balsam that are of extraordinary interest[,] collected by a Mr Gwynne[?] Vaughan & specimen of which he gave to the Cambridge University Herbarium - one has [?] inserted petioles & a [?] spiriform strict sub[?] spurr. It is a small species with orbicular leaves; the other is a tall plant with most curious sepals that enclose the whole lip & have their apices at one side of their [?] oblong sepals - the nerves from the [?] all arching to the lateral tip. Both have the distal lobes of the petals united into one blade, a common character in Indo-China & the Peninsular, but

almost unknown in China and Burma. I have named them respectively I. peltata & I. vaughani. No doubt there are not a few more Balsams to be discovered o[n] the Peninsular[,] please keep me supplied with specimens as they turn up.
I have just had a visit from Major & Miss Gage, who has I am glad to say quite recovered from the operation for appendicitis.
Very sincerely y[ou]rs Jos. D. Hooker [signed]