
          Washington City July 31. 1850.

Professor Jno [John] Torrey.

Respected Sir,

Yours of the 25th and 26th, with the two proofs 
are now before me. I could have replied sooner but some 
old friend from Canada on a visit have for a few days, 
prevented me.

In the first place, I do not like the type of the two proofs.
the Characters of the Divisions, Tribes, Sections, Genera and Species 
being in Italic letters destroy in my opinion the beauty of 
the page; and I have tried hard with Captn [Captain] Wilkes, to have 
this altered, but cannot prevail with him. I stated in 
one of my former letters, that I had no objection to the character
of Div. [Divisions] Tribes and Generally being left out, and 
I am now more thoroughly convinced from what you 
say, and after having seen a page in print, that by so 
doing, the work would look much better. I do not 
now distinctly recollect, all the characters of [crossed out: illegible] other 
authors which I added to or improved, on what the 
weight of such additions or improvements were; but 
these additions as your remark can be carried to [crossed out: illegible]
other remarks on some of the species of the genus. 
I do not perhaps comprehend to the full extent the weight 
of your observations respecting the necessity of striking out 
the word "repente" in its connection which the term 
"rhizoma". I have always understood a "rhizoid" to be 
an organ which [added: is] either creeping, caspitous[?] or slightly turned 
upwards; some authors call the trunk of a tree fern a rhizoma
but this last I have called a "trunk". but if you think that
        