THE CORRESPONDENCE OF SCHWEINITZ AND TORREY 197 
I only intend it as a means of facilitating the mutual understanding 
between different botanists of the identity of the plants they are 
examining, & of making beginners generally acquainted with 
certain species—as such I am pretty sure it will prove itself of 
some importance. As a proof I mention that Collins who made 
very light of my table when I showed it to him, according to his 
private way of doing business, kept it by him, & examined his 
dubious species by it—& owned after he had shewn me some of 
these & asked me how I would call them, that he had made out 
the same names exactly by my table. Perhaps another instance 
may be your suggestion, that my Carex striata is the xanthophysa 
of Muhl.—which I am very much inclined to believe (altho I 
see no male florets at the summit of the female spikes). If so 
that Carex is however ill described. I cannot entirely agree with 
you as to the great ambiguity of the subdivision—as soon as the 
precaution is used of having a good number of specimens before 
you. The slighter or greater variations in these appear to me 
almost always to indicate the true rubric with sufficient certainty. 
Besides by extending a principle I have in a few cases adopted— 
the remaining difficulty might be altogether obviated by con- 
triving so as to lead the examiner right, which ever way he might 
happen to choose in cases of ambiguity. At all events I shall 
follow your advice, & leave out all Pursh’s unconfirmed Europ. 
species. I was not aware that the C. lagopus of Muhl. is the 
Fraseri & am much obliged to you for the notice. I should very 
much like to get it. Solomon Conrad to whom I gave a copy of 
my Table for his own use—would insist upon striking off copies 
in order to be comunicated to Botanists—I have written to him 
not to do so—at least not till it has been corrected. If you 
actually think it worth while inserting (after correction & aug- 
mentation) into your Annals I think it ought to be in that work, 
that the descriptions of my new Species should appear. You have 
not answered that part of one of my letters in which I propose 
sending you my great mass of descriptions for use when you are 
about that family in your Flora [89], not only, but likewise my 
whole collection of Carices for comparison—I should not mind its 
absence for two or three months. Such likewise would be my 
Proposal about the Asters & Solidagines. I feel altogether incom- 
