
          excluded Amer'n [American] species in their proper groups. Indeed,
 I found an increased difficulty in dealing with
 so comparatively small a number of species (I enumerate
 126) as many gaps occur in the lineal
 series. I am satisfied, however, that under any
 circumstances, the groups when well defined &
 understood, will always be more or less independent
 of each other, as there is no such thing in
 nature as a strict lineal series of affinities.
 I have endeavoured to bring the allied species &
 groups (as I understand them) as nearly together as
 may be, & the result of my study leads me to
 regard as the most natural, leading, combining
 character-- the orifice of the perigynium.
 You will observe that in the matter of species
 I occasionally differ from your last expressed views
 in the N.Y. Ste. Fl. [New York State Flora, i.e A Flora of the State of New York] but this is, I suppose, inevitable
 where folks look out of their own respective eyes.
 Where I had specimens I have re-written all
 the characters, reserving as I best might, the contrasting
 ones for the specific phrase, & throwing
 what I could into the combining characters of
 the sections & groups. It occurs to me to observe
 that I saw in Mr. Green's Texas species, collected 
 by Drummond [Thomas Drummond], your C. complanata [Carex complanata] the perig'm [perigynium] of
 which is, to my eye, distinctly striate, nor can I at all
 distinguish it from C. triceps, [Carex triceps] Mx. [Michaux] but as the Texan plant 
        