Letters to a Friend 



opportunities for reading and botanizing. I 

 shall be here for about two weeks, then I shall 

 be engaged in shearing sheep between the Tuo- 

 lumne and Stanislaus from the San Joaquin 

 to the Sierra foothills for about two months. 

 I will be in California until next November, 

 when I mean to start for South America. 



I received your Castleton letter and wrote 

 you in November. I suppose you left Vermont 

 before my letter had time to reach you. You 

 must prepare for your Yosemite baptism in June. 



Here is a sweet little flower that I have just 

 found among the rocks of the brook that waters 

 Twenty-Hill Hollow. Its anthers are curiously 

 united in pairs and form stars upon its breast. 

 The calyx seems to have been judged too plain 

 and green to accompany the splendid corolla, 

 and so is left behind among the leaves. I first 

 met this plant among the Sierra Nevadas. 

 There are five or six species. For beauty and 

 simplicity they might be allowed to dwell with 

 in sight of Calypso. There are about twenty 

 plants in flower in the gardens of my daily 



