Geyer, Chas. A. 



18^5 i January 11 

 Honolulu 



TRANSLATION 



Honolulu, Omahu, January 11, l8V> 



Dr. George Engelmann 

 Dear Doctor, 



You received ray last letter from Fort Colville 18^3 which I sent with 

 Officer Ogden via Canada. Should you not have received it, please inquire with 

 Mr. Campbell (Sublette 8c Campbell) through whofnands it should have reached you. 

 As usual I am getting around and am very busy. I was lucky to find a new, up to 

 now unknown field, the mountains of Coeur d'Aline or the Skitsoe Indiana on the 

 upper Spokane "River and the mesa of Nez-Perce on the upper Salmon River and Kootenai(?). 

 The total number of my specimens is almost 11,000, of which perhaps 2-1/2 thousand 

 were somewhat damaged during the transport, which is hardly avoidable on all 

 these many rivers. All specimens were selected with great care and dried. The 

 number of species is not large, hardly more than ^00, the reason is that I did not 

 think it worthwhile to collect plants which can be found at the Missouri and near 

 St. Louis. Others and rarer ones I collected in masses. In my opinion I have a new 

 very beautiful Cypripodium between spectabile and canadense in my collection, I found 

 it in the woods of Pinus resinosa above 250 f eet • • • • mesa of Nez Perce at the 

 Salmon River. At the same place another new sp. of Gymandra ; one Thaspium , — I have 

 four new species of Penstemon, if I am not very much mistaken and count 18 species 

 of this genus, which I collected all during the former trips and found 10 on my last 

 trip; there are species which Douglas might have found.... 



I collected many seeds, also bulbs of Calochortus, Lewisia etc. near Coeur 

 d*Aline and found Trillium with the stem 3-^" long under the ground, leaves round 

 as circles and large and leather-like with 3- / +" thick leave styles and a sitting 

 reddish-brown flower . . . grows in Clusters next to each other in swampy, sunny 

 meadows • 



Everything here is stränge to me and I have much to do. I cannot even 

 think of giving you a detailed report of my last trip. This is a place where is 

 probably more luxury than in any other city of the world. Money is here the word 

 for ff God n . These islands are beautifully situated, one could call them the hotel 

 of the Pacific. The climate is "distressingly healthy tf , only four doctors are in 

 Honolulu and none of them has anything to dol — I almost stayed here. However, today 

 learned that everything is pr epared for me to go to London. It is possible that I 



