IRbodora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
' Vol. 7 August, 1905 No. 80 
LETTER OF DR. ASA GRAY TO LEWIS D. 
| DE SCHWEINITZ. 
The following unpublished letter was written by Dr. Gray while he 
was teaching in Bartlett’s School in Utica, New York, and is among 
the earliest of his botanical letters. It may be of interest to the 
readers of RHODORA as showing his early enthusiasm and aspira- 
tions. I am indebted to Dr. George de Schweinitz, a grandson of 
Lewis de Schweinitz, for the privilege of examining some of his 
grandfather's correspondence and of publishing such of it as seems 
desirable. There was an appendix to the letter containing a closely- 
written list of about 300 species of desiderata. De Schweinitz died 
in February of 1834, and this is the only letter from Dr. Gray which 
I have found amongst the correspondence.— C. L. SHEAR, Washing- 
ton, D. C. 
Utica, March 8th, 1833. 
Dear Sir 
Your kind and very acceptable letter of Decr. 3oth has but just 
reached me owing to some mistake at the Post office. It reached me 
just as I had finished my chemical course and was about making 
arrangements for the Botanical campaign of the ensuing summer. 
I thank you for the honor you do me in giving my name to that 
beautiful Carex I supposed to be C. livida. I had supposed it to be 
an undescribed species for some time. I sent it to Dewey with some 
other Carices last fall labelled Carex ¿vida? He gave no opinion but 
sent me Wahl & Willd.'s description. The character of the remote 
or sub-radical lower Pist. spike mentioned by Willd. &c does not 
exist in our plant. It differs in the mode of growth as well as other 
