
          go on & give us your proposed Flora of North
 America. Probably no person among us is so well
 qualified by the union of perseverance & advantages,
 & it is time that the task was undertaken by a native
 botanist. A work of this kind well digested in its
 synonyms, freed from superfluous & non existent species,
 & as far as possible retaining the older names of plants,
 would be of inestimable value. On this last subject I 
 cannot keep peace with the continental botanists of Europe
 (I say continental for Smith & Hooker seem not to
 follow them) in forming new genera wherever the old ones
 are found susceptible of division. The constant fluctuation
 in botanical nomenclature, & consequent load of synonyms
 with which books must be incumbered [encumbered] , is at the present 
 day the greatest stumbling block in the way of students of 
 our science. What it will be half a century hence, God
 only knows. The same principles which have divided Convallaria
 & Pyrola, must hereafter divide Lysimachia and Ribes,
 & a vast number of other genera which are now received as 
 entire.  It is probable the present acknowledged genera might
 be at once increased to twice the number on very defensible
 grounds. Take for example Ranunculus of which some species
 have scales for nectaries & some have tubes: some have 
 spherical heads & some cylindrical; some are uncinate, &
 some are muricate, & some neither. Rafinesque might
 form, & Shultes adopt, half a dozen genera from 
 this alone. Now if any congress of Laybach or Holy
        