illustrations for Lindley's Introduction to Botany and had described the flower and the structure of the wood of Phytocrene gigantea in Wallich's Plantae Asiaticae Rariores, but (a noteworthy indication of his interest in Cryptogams at this time) he had supplied an account of the structure and development of Targionia hypophylla to be appended to Mirbel's classic monograph on the anatomy and physiology of Marchantia polymorpha—published in 1832.
His medical studies finished, Griffith sailed from England in May 1832, he arrived at Madras in September and was appointed Assistant-Surgeon on the Madras establishment in the service of the East India Company. His scientific work was done in the intervals of a busy life. Only a man of great energy and enthusiasm and possessed of great powers of physical endurance could have done the work that Griffith crowded into the years, between his landing in India and his death at Malacca before the age of 35 on February 9, 1845. This time was all spent in the East Indies—he never returned to England.
Deferring for the moment consideration of his scientific work we may take a general survey of Griffith's movements during his working life and of his labours as an explorer and collector.
After spending some months in the neighbourhood of Madras, he was situated for more than two years at Mergui and collected extensively in Tenasserim. He was recalled to Calcutta in 1835 and attached to the Bengal Presidency in order to be sent with Dr Wallich and Mr M'Clelland to visit and inspect the localities in which tea grew wild in Assam. Griffith's full report on this enquiry led to the important economic conclusion (based largely on a critical comparison of the Assam flora with the flora of tea-growing regions of China) that tea might be successfully grown under the conditions in Assam and similar districts of India. When the other members of the expedition returned Griffith was detained in Assam, where he remained during the whole of 1836, making a successful expedition into the Mishmee mountains only once before visited by a European.
Early in 1837 Griffith, accompanied by only one servant, set off on an exploring expedition through the very disturbed
