Cadwallader Colden with Gronovius, Linnceus, fyc. 91 



affinities, employing some strictly artificial scheme for the single 

 purpose of arriving most readily at the name of an unknown 

 plant, as well as his remarks upon the gradations from one class 

 and genus to another which the natural system when discovered 

 may be expected to present, will appear really surprising, when 

 it is remembered that he could have read nothing upon the natu- 

 ral classification more modern than the Fragmenta Methodi 

 Naturalis, appended by Linnaeus to his Classes Pla?itarnm, 

 (1738.) These letters are copied from the original drafts pre- 

 served among the Colden papers. 



Dr. Colden to Gronovius. 



[No date.] 



Dear Sir — Your favor of the 3d of April, which I did not 

 receive until the 15th of November, has so far exceeded the fond- 

 est of my hopes, that you have thereby laid me under the strong- 

 est obligations. I was, and still am, so conscious of my want of 

 knowledge in botany, that I with good reason apprehended it 

 was not in my power to be of any use to you or Dr. Linnaeus, 

 both of you consummate in that science. I cannot cease to ad- 

 mire the unwearied diligence and surprising accuracy of Dr. 

 Linnasus, in forming his characters of such a vast number of 

 plants. But it is to you more immediately that we in America 



are indebted; and it was merely in gratitude for the benefit we 



in America have received from your labors, that I offered any 

 little assistance that is in my power, and which you have now 

 laid me under the strongest obligations to perform. I must there- 

 fore previously excuse an imputation of negligence, which I am 

 afraid I shall hardly avoid, in not complying with all that you 

 may justly expect from me. For, as I am in public employments, 

 I am frequently, during the summer season, obliged to attend to 

 them in the city, where I have neither leisure nor opportunity to 

 examine plants. So it has happened to me these two last sum- 

 mers ; and it was accidental that, in the summer before them, I 

 had so much leisure to examine the plants growing near my house 

 in the country, and to make the observations which I sent to 

 you. I shall next summer endeavor to collect for you all the 

 specimens which you desire ; and when I meet with any other" 

 plants which I think deserve your observation, T shall send you 

 specimens of them, together with my own observations. I thank 

 you likewise for your present of Linnaeus's Characters, his Fun- 



