402 CORRESPONDENCE. [1853, 
is largely used by our shipping. But what plant 
yields the manilla hemp for this cordage I have not 
the means of knowing, that is, whether the Musa 
textilis or no. I have been promised specimens of 
the stem of the plant, ete. But the climate makes 
our countrymen indolent there, and forgetful. 1 will 
ask for statistics as to the paper manufacture. . 
I shall be pleased to have you figure as many of our 
ferns as you can; and pray give names to all new 
species without hesitation. They will be more fitly 
named by the describer than by any one else. 
I note with satisfaction what you write about genera 
of ferns. This pushing a single character (as vena- 
tion) without regard to consequences, and giving it 
the same importance when it does not accord with 
habit as when it does, is the fault of most botanolo- 
gists who restrict their view to one subject or one idea 
only. I am glad that you will carefully revise the 
genera on your own judgment. 
By the way, the fern I sent you last spring, and 
which you called Asplenium montanum, Willd. (a 
species I used to know well), struck the collector 
(Beaumont), as it did me, to be different. Pray col- 
late, and perhaps figure it, as well as the ordinary A. 
montanum, 
I was grieved to hear of the death of Adr. de Jus- 
sieu, with whom I have had a very pleasant corre- 
spondence for the last three years, and to whom I was 
attached as to no other Frenchman. His late letters 
were so cheerful and lively, and even hopeful, that the 
news of his death took me by surprise, notwithstanding 
the steady failure of his health for a long while. . . . 
e remember with interest that dear Harvey sets 
out to-morrow on his long voyage. 
eam eee 
