The professor had intended dealing with the origin of the weed, its relations to ordinary plants, the nature of its growth, so far as this proceeded, and the forms which it would ultimately have assumed. Unfortunately his notes upon these points are so abbreviated and technical as to be unintelligible to me; and personally I possess no qualifications for dealing with the scientific aspects of the case. So I must confine myself to a plain narrative of the occurrences which I witnessed. * * * * * It was nine o’clock in the evening of November 10, 1908, when I left my office in Norfolk Street, letting myself out with a duplicate key which the hall-porter had intrusted to me. I thought at first that it was snowing; but when I put out my hand and caught a few of the particles, I found that they were flimsy white seeds, something like those of melons, only less substantial. Where they lay in heaps—as I thought—in the road, their color appeared to be gray. At the Embankment end of the street the “heaps” were larger; and when I came to them I discovered that they were not seeds, but a growth of gray weed, which fastened round my shoes as I tried to walk over it. I stooped and took hold of a piece to examine it; but, when I attempted to pluck it, it stretched like elastic, without breaking off. The tendrils were round, and about one-fourth of an inch in diameter when not stretched. They had, at intervals, spherical bulges which, at a distance, bore the appearance of small berries. These appeared to be of the same substance as the tendrils. The latter began twining round my fingers, and I had some difficulty in releasing them. The road and the Embankment were deserted by people, but three or four horses at the cab stand were plunging with fright as the weed wound round their legs. It had grown perceptibly in the few minutes that I had been observing it, and, feeling somewhat alarmed, I made my way back along Norfolk Street. The weed had spread a good deal there also; and I noticed that wherever a white seed fell a fresh plant sprang up, and grew with marvelous rapidity. In the Strand the weed was nearly a yard high. The ’bus drivers were whipping their frightened horses in a vain attempt to drive over it. The foot-passengers were unable to move, except a big man, who, with a small axe, hacked a passage through the growth for himself, his wife and his daughter—a pretty girl of about nineteen.