April 18/ [18]99
THE CAMP, SUNNINGDALE.
My dear Prain I have two letters & much else to thank you for of March 7 & 16. -- the superb consignment of excellent cigars; a packet of 7 Impatiens seed, & to day Gammie’s*1 Herb[arium] of Impatiens. The letter[sic] is a very fine set indeed, with many duplicates, & I suspect it represents the whole of his 1897/8 collections of the genus, totus & rotundus, duplicates & all! Of this you

will be able to judge when I return them named to Calcutta. Assuredly many of the specimens should have been in Herb[arium] Calcutta. Most unfortunately the figure & description of the much mixed[?] Impatiens were published last month, I called it a var[iety] of Roylei, but from Gammie’s specimens, on which I find some subulate stipular glands, I cannot doubt it is the Sikkim I. sulcata Wall. -- a bad name, for the items are sulcate only in a dried state -- which throw me out.

I am still toiling & moiling at the Ceylon grasses, finding something to correct in Flor. B. Ind. -- as does Stapf*2 who I have had to ask to revise Eragrostis. As to the tribes & subtribes, they are simply hopeless, & what between Bentham*3, Hackel, & Stapf, I am at my wit´s ends in respect of some of them. Have you any ideas about Coix[?]? I find it difficult to separate gigantea from Lachryma now that Stapf puts my annual, calt. Khasia[?] one into the latter species! On to C. aquatica Roxb. -- has any one seen it with its [illeg.] or[?] floating

rootstock 50--100 ft. long; & I know of no species with the turbinate fruit which B. describes in gigantea. True[?] Watt. (Dict. In. Pl.)[?] describes the fruit of most of the genus as pyriform, but he must stand on his head to do so; some obpyriform is hardly accurate. Stapf has in Kew Bull[etin] 1888 insisted on the value of Roxburghs[?] character of Lachryma ♂ [male sign] spikulate[?] [illeg.] or gigantea ♂ ternate but I find in Herb[arium] a lot of specimens marked by himself ♂ sp. 2--3- nuts & so I find them to[stet] vague[?] -- Do not bother about this if you have nothing in your head about it. I suspect that Lachryma is a cult[ivated] form of gigantea, or vice versa. Ever sincerely yours | Jos. D Hooker [signature]