. 54.] TO CHARLES WRIGHT. 541 



or stereotyped at Gottingen, for the Smithsonian con- 

 tributions, and have written Grisebach to cultivate his 

 Spanish influence in the view of having that govern- 

 ment at length patronize effectively the bringing out 

 of a Flora Cubensis, by Wright and Grisebach. 



You owe this letter partly to the general disturb- 

 ance of an uneasy conscience, and partly to a sudden 

 cold caught by carelessness in hot weather, which un- 

 fits me for more driving work. It is getting better. 

 I hope to write you again before I catch a new one. 



July 4, Eighty-ninth Anniversary 

 of the United States. 



Yours of June 9-21 reached me the very day that 

 I mailed my last missive to you, a good long letter. 

 Here is a fine letter from you, showing how busy and 

 active a man you are. Pretty well for a man of your 

 age to be shinning up palm-trees, and barking your 

 shins. Be careful ! Grisebach will take your criti- 

 cisms all right, no doubt. Yesterday I got the in- 

 closed from him. Very well. Is the Cuban M. Sau- 

 valle ? . . . 



Dr. Hooker has sent me a specimen of Welwitschia, 

 that queer African tree a foot high, many years old, 

 and with only two leaves, and those all in shreds. . . . 



September 5. 



. . . Dear, good Sir William Hooker is dead, of 

 diphtheria, on the 15th August, six weeks over 

 eighty years. I have no news yet from the family ; 

 but learn indirectly that Dr. Hooker is sick, " a 

 gastric affection." I do hope it is nothing danger- 

 ous. . . . 



Dr. Gray wrote for the " American Journal of 



