n a position to
avoid violent incongruities.

[Illustration: FIG. 20.]

I had resort, a few years ago, to the young botanist Ruhmer, assistant at
the Botanical Museum at Schoeneberg, who has unfortunately since died of
some chest-disease, in order to get some sort of a groundwork for direct
investigations. I asked him to look up the literature of the subject, with
respect to the employment of the Indian Araceae for domestic uses or in
medicine. A detailed work on the subject was produced, and establishes
that, quite irrespective of species of Alocasia and Colocasia that have
been referred to, a large number of Araceae were employed for all sorts of
domestic purposes. Scindapsus, which was used as a medicine, has actually
retained a Sanskrit name, "vustiva." I cannot here go further into the
details of this investigation, but must remark that even the incomplete and
imperfect drawings of these plants, which, owing to the difficulty of
preserving them, are so difficult to collect through travelers, exhibit
such a wealth of shape, that it is quite natural that Indian and Persian
flower-loving artists should be quite taken with them, and employ them
enthusiastically in decorative art. Let me also mention that Haeckel, in
his '"Letters of an Indian Traveler," very often bears witness to the
effect of the Araceae upon the general appearance of the vegetation, both in
the full and enormous development of species of Caladia and in the species
of Pothos which form such impenetrable mazes of interlooping stems.

In conclusion, allow me to remark that the results of my investigation, of
which but a succinct account has been given here, negative certain
derivations, which have been believed in, though they have never been
proved; such as that of the form I have last discussed from the Assyrian
palmetta, or from a cypress bent down by the wind. To say the least the
laws of formation here laid down have a more intimate connection with the
forms as they have come down to us, and give us a better handle for future
use and development. The object of the investigation was, in general words,
to prepare for an explanation of the questions raised; and even if the
results had turned out other than they have, it would have sufficed me to
have given an impulse to labors which will testify to the truth of the dead
master's words:

"Was Du ererbt von deinen Vaetern hast,
Erwirb es, um es zu besitzen."

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