
          Recd [Received] Jany [January] 23rd
 Ansd [Answered] Apr. [April] 7th


 My dear Sir,


 There is much between the cup & the lip, in other
 words, I intended long since to have put up for your specimens
 of the E. [East] Indian Cyperaceae, as well as of several
 other orders, but l'homme propose mais Dieu dispose, a trite
 but orthodox French proverb. In other words I have been for
 these some months fiddle-faddling, doing always some thing
 but very little to the purpose; which little somethings have
 unfortunately occupied more of my time than I anticipated
 when I commenced them. Last winter as I wrote you I was
 occupied with a number [inserted : (as to China)] of the Bot. [Botany] of Buckley's voyage,
 the greater part of which was made up from Nees von Esenbeck's
 manuscripts of Gramineae & Cyperaceae; but as I had to identify
 the plants with the descriptions, the whole took me up too much
 time and the worst of the business is that scarcely had Hooker
 got the mat [material], and commenced printing, where he was force to come
 to a stand, by the failure of the publisher & bookseller that
 number therefore is in status quo. Next I attached the Chilian
 & Buenos Ayrean Compositae; Don in London having returned mine
 (sent to him to describe) untouched after having had them for
 more than two years; that consumed several months, but I
 described all the Cynoscephalae, Cichoraceae, Nassauviaceae
 Mutisiaceae and  Senecionideae Lessg. [Lessing] (with the exception of the
 genera Senecio (about 60 species) and Ephaphaleae (about 20 species)),
 besides arranging and preparing for description the species of the
 other groups, and even describing of them all the new genera.


 I then got tired of the job, and as the paper was to be between
 Hooker & myself, I turned over the remainder to him as I
 could afford no more time to them. De Candolle not having
 brought out his vol. [volume] of Compositae, I made a copy of all the
 characters & observations of the new species and sent it to him,
 as there seemed but little opportunity of Hooker Journal of Botany

        