30 



"If the Rhubarb from London be the Siberian, I have it. I had 

 the Perennial Flax, from Livonia. It growed four feet high, and I 

 don't know but fifty stalks to the root ; but the flax was very rotten 

 and coarse. The flowers are large and blue. It lived many years and 

 then died. 



John Bartram. 



In a letter written to Dr. Golden,* Dr. Alexander Garden of 

 Gharleston, S. C., writes in 1754 "I shall be glad to hear of 

 Miss Golden's improvements, which no doubt increase every day, 

 and may we again be surprised with more than a Dacier, even in 

 America." 



Dr. Garden's letters, both published and unpublished, contain 

 many allusions to Jane and there were evidently frequent com- 

 munications that passed between them. In 1755 in a letter to 

 Mr. Ellis t he writes of Dr. Golden as a great botanist and adds 

 with true eighteenth century gallantry that " his lovely daughter 

 is greatly master of the Linnean method." This last statement 

 in regard to her personal appearance, if she at all resembled her 

 distinguished, but homely father, being more due to the adulatory 

 style of the day than to actual fact, and that Jane's good sense 

 resented an excess of flattery is shown in some later letters. 



In an undated and unlabeled fragment addressed presumably 

 to Dr. Golden X he writes : 



" I have sent you some of the Araorpha a very Curious plant & 

 peculiar to Carolina — in Linnaeus Species Plantar, there is only one 

 Species known but I have (another) which I have brought down from 

 Saluda with me — Miss Colden will be much pleased with it. It 

 flowers with us in Aprile, May & June, & its flowers make a beautiful 

 apearance in a spike. When you favor me with a line please direct to 

 Dr. Alex*^. Garden, Physician in Charlestown, So. Carolina." 



Again in a letter dated Gharlestown Febry 18, 1755, he writes : 



"I sent you some more of the true Indigo seed and some Millet 

 Seed which I am persuaded will both grow very well to you. I men- 

 tioned to Miss Colden that the Small Bags of Shells something like 

 Hops that she has are the real Matrices of the Buccinum ampullatum 

 of Dr. Lister — Give me leave to present my Compliments to Miss 

 Colden and your kind family. ' ' 



* Gray. Selections. 



t Smith. Correspondence of Linnaeus, 348. 



X Colden MSS. 



