ITHACA, X* Y. , Dec, 31st., 1888. 



My Dear DEANE:- Your note concerning Carex filifolia is at 

 hand, and is very welcome. The description shows that the plant 

 that is so labelled in Herb. Schweinitz isnot the plant intend- 

 ed by Nat tall. The plant of Schweinitz is our poor old unfor- 

 tunate much-to-be-pitied and everlastingly-knocked- about Carex 

 varia of all authors- except the one who made the species* 



Poor Carex varial Its feet are knocked from under it, and 

 it stands in mid-air, without even the poor consolation of a name 

 And yet it may have a name; for Liebmann did so provoking a thing 

 as to describe a weakling from uncivilized Mexico asCarex tur- 

 binata,__ a plant for all the world like an aberrant form of our 

 unhappy species. It seems hard to be obliged to go to Mexico 

 for a Christian na me, and yet I suppose that stranger things 

 have happened. Bat time and more study must decide if we must 

 adopt the name of the Dane, 



Bat this is only one of two dozen or more delecta- 

 ble problembich await those who, Nebuchadneezer-like, go to grass 

 (The word just above this is not Bohemian, but is simply a fig- 

 urative expression which means "problems which*"). 

 Have I anything on my hands? Only this,- and twice as much more! 

 A greenhouse to build; ten or twelve off-hand lectures to in- 

 flict upon innocent people in various parts of the virtuous state 

 of New York; a lecture at Albany, Jan. 18th., on "A SEED: A chap 

 ter of suggestions",- a very suggestive subject and one which 

 must be wellenough presented to appear in merciless print ; three 

 lectures a week to sleeping students; and a most undigestible lot 

 of Carex pastry. 



I have o-wed you a grudge for several months, and nowl 

 have paid you off. 



Yours, as ever, 



