8 ESSAYS. 
of that amiable and simple-hearted man, in 1768; and by 
him many seeds, living plants, and interesting observations 
were communicated to Linnzus, but few, if any, dried speci- 
mens. Dr. Garden, who was a native of Scotland, resided in 
Charleston, South Carolina, from about 1745 to the com- 
mencement of the American Revolution, devoting all the time 
he could redeem from an extensive medical practice to the 
zealous pursuit of botany and zodlogy. His chief correspond- 
ent was Ellis at London, but through Ellis he commenced a 
correspondence with Linnzus, and to both he sent manuscript 
descriptions of new plants and animals with many excellent 
critical observations. None of his specimens addressed to the 
latter reached their destination, the ships by which they were 
sent having been intercepted by French cruisers ; and Linnzus 
complained that he was often unable to make out many of Dr. 
Garden’s genera for want of the plants themselves. Ellis was 
sometimes more fortunate, but as he seems usually to have con- 
tented himself with the transmission of the descriptions alone, 
we find no authentic specimens from Garden in the Linnzan 
herbarium. . 
We have now probably mentioned all the North American 
correspondents of Linnzus ; for Dr. Kuhn, who appears only 
to have brought him living specimens of the plant which bears 
his name, and Catesby, who shortly before his death sent a 
few living plants which his friend Lawson had collected in 
Carolina, can scarcely be reckoned among the number.1 
none now but real professors can pretend to attain it. As I love you I 
tell you our sentiments.” (Letter of April 20, 1754.) “ You have begun 
by your ‘Species Plantarum’; but if you will be forever making new 
names, and altering good and old ones, for such hard names that convey 
no idea of the plant, it will be impossible to attain to a perfect knowledge 
in the science of botany.” (Letter of April 10, 1755: from Smith’s Se- 
lection of the Correspondence of Linnzus, ete.) 
1 In a letter to Haller, dated Leyden, January 23, 1738, Linneus | 
writes : “ You would searcely believe how many of the vegetable produe- 
tions of Virginia are the same as our European ones. There are Alps in 
the country of New York, for the snow remains all summer long on the 
mountains there. I am now giving instructions to a medical student 
here, who is a native of that country, and will return thither in the course 
of a year, that he may visit those mountains, and let me know whether 
