2 I 2 
NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
CHAP. 
Whatever steps you think necessary to take for 
lessening your labour in the distribution of my 
plants will meet my cheerful acquiescence. ... I 
am deeply thankful to you for having bestowed so 
much of your valuable time on my plants ; but, on 
my part, I can truly say that I have had no greater 
stimulus in collecting than to think, whenever I 
have gathered a new or strange plant, " This will 
surely please Mr. Bentham." 
I wrote to you in June last, on the occasion of 
dispatching to you three cases of plants from 
Ambato. . . . 
I am sorry the collection does not contain more 
trees ; but the number of species of trees is actually 
much fewer in cold regions than in warm, and I 
miss much here the excellent climbers (Indians, I 
mean, not lianas) I used to have on the Uaupes and 
Rio Negro. However, if I remain in the country, 
not many of the trees shall escape me. There are 
a great many arborescent Compositae, of which I 
have as yet taken very few — do you think I ought 
to gather them all ? 
My object in visiting Quito was partly to get 
my few books bound and a few clothes made, for 
in so many years in the forest all I had with me 
had got into a very dilapidated state ; as also to 
get such substitutes as I could for the warm under- 
clothing sent out by yourself and Mr. Pritchett and 
lost on the way. I hope also to herborise a little 
on the western side of the Cordillera, but I have 
been seriously ill, and am still in so much pain 
that I cannot write for more than a few minutes 
together. 
