366 A DECADE OF WORK AT HOME. (1850, 
“ Botanical Text-Book,” which I am now preparing for 
the press. I shall be most glad of any further hints. 
May Task you what you think of Adrien de Jus- 
sieu’s way of explaining the regular alternation of 
organs in the flower? I greatly jucliees to it. 
I have to finish this Lindheimer oelbediarti ‘fives 
Fendler’s, distribute and study Wright’s collection 
when I get it, carry the “ Botanical Text-Book” 
through the press, rewriting and expanding it (thus 
far I have made it all over), write the first volume of 
an elaborate report on the Trees of United States 
for the Smithsonian Institution, in fact a Sylva, with 
colored plates by Sprague (which I could not resist 
taking in hand, as that institution promised to bring 
it out, and handsomely, at their expense), and give 
my course of lectures in the college from March to 
June. When all this is done I can cross the At- 
lantic. . . . By engaging a brother professor to take 
the duties which I have for the autumn term (assign- 
ing to him pro rata from my salary), I shall be free 
until Ist March ensuing. But I mean to ask for leave 
of absence for a year, and trust I shall get it. . . . 
As far as it has yet shaped itself my plan is. . . 
to sit down hard to work for the autumn and winter 
on the Exploring Expedition plants, to go to Paris in 
the spring and settle such questions as must be settled 
there after I come to know better than I now do (ex- 
cept in the Composite) what they are. Excepting 
the Oregon and Californian plants, which are as- 
signed to Torrey, and the Sandwich Islands Collee- 
tion, a fine one, the collection is a poor one, often 
very meagre in specimens, too much of an alongshore 
and roadside collection to be of great interest. I am 
not familiar with tropical forms and have no great 
