38o NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
Orinoco, Spruce wrote two botanical letters — to 
Mr. Bentham and Sir William Hooker. The 
former is mainly devoted to a general account of 
the vegetation of the Upper Rio Negro, inter- 
spersed with remarks on the amount and character 
of his collections, and on various matters bearing 
upon his past and future explorations, so that 1 
think it will be interesting not only to botanists 
but to all lovers of natural history in its broader 
aspects. The other letter is chiefly occupied with 
an account of a fairly rich locality for Mosses and 
Hepaticse, groups which were especially interesting 
to his correspondent, and which he himself made 
the chief study of his life. This will, I think, 
interest all who have any knowledge of these 
exquisitely beautiful little plants.] 
To Mr. George Bentham 
San Carlos, TV^^z;. 23, 1853. 
My collections are very poor, and I am leaving a single case 
to be dispatched to the Barra by the first opportunity. Even 
had not my time been so much taken up by hunting up lazy and 
drunken Indians to their work and seeing they kept at it, I could 
not have done much in the wet season, when scarcely any trees 
flower, and there are not ferns here as at Sao Gabriel, to keep me 
in work. Besides, the river-side vegetation has hardly any plants 
not already gathered, either on the Rio Negro or the Lower 
Uaupes. But among the few plants I have gathered, there are 
several interesting for their anomalous structure. The other day 
on the Casiquiari I gathered a tree, allied perhaps to Ochtho- 
cosmus (Ternstromiacese), but approaching also Humiriaceae, 
Olacace^e, and Ebenaceae. I have some others which have 
something in common with the three orders just named, but do 
not very clearly belong to any one of them : a new genus of 
Rhizoboleae allied to Anthodiscus, but scarcely combinable with it ; 
a fine series of Dimorphandras apparently all undescribed ; more 
nutmegs and Commianthi ; and several other things which I doubt 
not will interest you, if they only reach your hands in safety. 
