1788.] TO DR. LETTSOM. 



547 



the mountains, the characters of which I have attempted drawing 

 though from the dissection of but a single flower : 



CaL, three-leaved, the leaflets very small, coloured, one above and 

 two beneath. 



Corol, sub-papilionaceous, the stan dard wanting ; the wings inverse- 

 egg' d, spreading, free ; the keel subcylindrical, oblong, divided 

 at the apex by the nectarium, the segments emarginate. 



Nectarium, an inflated body, at the end and between the divisions 

 of the keel, including and covering the parts of fructification, 

 rising at the fore-part, and bearing a fringed tuft. 



Stam., six, slender, somewhat clubbed, joined to the keel near the 

 middle, and about half the length of it ; antherce roundish. 



G-ermen, inverse-egg' d, compressed ; style the length of the keel, 

 clubbed and rising at the apex ; the stigma thickish, truncated 

 and torn or two-lipped. 



Seed-vessel, a capsule, inverse-hearted, compressed, two-celled and 

 two-valved. 



Seeds, two, solitary or one in each cell, begirt with a three-parted 

 covering.* 



To this plant, should it prove to be a new genus, I had some 

 time since designed the appellation of Lettsomia, with this provision, 

 that it might not be unpleasing to thee, and that, in the interim, I 

 should not be able to discover a plant more exalted, conspicuous, 

 and worthy. 



I have, indeed, had a design highly favourable to discoveries in 

 view, a journey to the Mississippi, westward ; but have not yet been 

 at leisure to prosecute it. I have, therefore, at present, but this 

 humble offering to make. 



The autumn will be more favourable for sending of plants, &c, 



lished in the books. It grows abundantly on the Serpentine rock, in the vicinity 

 of Marshallton, Humphry Marshall's former residence, where Doctor M. pointed 

 it out to the editor, several years prior to the publication of Pubsh's Flora. 



* This plant proved to be a Poly gala ; and the species, from which the descrip- 

 tion is taken, was doubtless the pretty little P. paucifolia, of Willdenow. 



Among the Marshall Papers, there is one, without date, but apparently of 

 this period, or earlier, on which is a sketch of the genus Xanthorhiza ; and also 

 an excellent description (with a rough drawing) of the Floerkea proserpinacoides, 

 of Willd. From diffidence, or want of opportunity to publish, many of the disco- 

 veries, and much of the credit, really due to Bartram, Marshall, and Muhlen- 

 berg, have been ascribed to, or appropriated by, European botanists. 



