136 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



nearly related to De Candolle's O. capillare^ but its leaves are 

 five- not three-partite; it is a pretty annual, and I have ob- 

 tained good specimens of it, and ripe seeds. I have also 

 found several plants that perhaps belong to Anomostephium, 

 (DC.) and a host of others which I have not had time to ex- 

 amine. I am sure that of Compositce alone I have not much 

 fewer than three hundred species; and if Mr Bentham still 

 continues to publish my collections of this tribe, he will have 

 a good deal to do when these reach England. I have also a 

 large stock of seeds for Mr Murray, and an excellent set of 

 the Coleopterce of this country for my kind friend Mr (now I 

 suppose Dr) Joseph Hooker, who will I am sure be pleased 

 with them as the specimens are in perfectly good condition, 

 and being collected in this inland province, there can be no 

 doubt many of them will be new to him. 



You cannot conceive the anxiety I now experience to hear 

 from you and my other friends. Two years have elapsed 

 since the date of your last letters, and how many changes 

 may not have taken place during that period ! I fully anti- 

 cipate, however, the happiness of receiving tidings from home 

 on my arrival at Villa Rica, or at San Joao del Rey, in 

 the province of Minas Geraes. The rains have now ceased, 

 and the season is become fine for travelling ; every thing is 

 prepared for starting, and I hope to take my departure to- 

 morrow afternoon. During my stay here, I have acquired 

 four horses and a little money by the practice of medicine; 

 and these earnings will both prove highly favourable to me, 

 as I was much in want of horses, and have now the money 

 they would have cost me. My troop consists at present of 

 sixteen horses and four men, besides a dog, monkey, and 

 several parrots. 



I am particularly anxious to quit this province without 

 delay, as there seems every prospect of its soon being involv- 

 ed in civil war, similar to what now exists in Piauhy and 

 Maranham. A few days ago, tidings came that the revolu- 

 tionists had entered the province of Goyaz, and taken pos- 

 session of San Pedro de Alcantra, which is situated on the 



