
          Ansd [Answered] Oct 14th

 Harrisonville Cass county Mo
 Sept 29th 1853

 Dr Torry Professor of Botany [?]

 Sir

 I take the liberty of writing you
 concerning a plant I found a few days since

 Although I am a total stranger to you - you
 are well known to me by reputation - knowing your
 great love of Botany encourages me to write freely
 to you concerning the plant that interests me
 so much - had I your work I have no doubt I
 could satisfy myself without giving you trouble
 for I can scarcely hope it is a new sps [species]
 as near as I can remember it is Hibiscus - at
 present I have no work to refer to - about five years 
 ago I lost all my books - they were freighted &
 insured from New York to Oregon city. I have
 traced them to  San Francisco & no farther. I have
 no doubt they have been burnt in that place.

 As they are insured with the Atlantic Mutual
 Insurance co [company] I have no doubt I shall get my
 money after a time & then be able to make up
 my book losses again.

 The Hibiscus? I forward you is not
 a good specimen. It was about the last
 flower of the season. I was several miles 
 from home seeking horses, when I found it.
 As I had no proper means of securing it, it is
 very much dammaged [damaged]. I found it growing
 in a moist very rich alluvial soil, by the side 
 of a prarie [prairie] water hole that is supplied by
 the rains. It is a perennial sending up [wavy?]
 shoots of about 3 feet 6 inches in length.

 About the Christmas of the year
        