
          [Note in pencil: [1847?]]


 My dear Doctor-- I am endeavouring (very slowly) to grope my
 way amongst the willows, but our friend [Asa Gray] Gray's Collections
 & what we can drum up here are miserably deficient.
 Please send me, by letter a leaf or 2 & aments (of both sexes)
 of your Salix myricoides which (following Barratt [Joseph Barratt]) you
 put in his tribe "Griseae" where it surely cannot belong.
 The "Griseae" have "ovaries silky-gray, aments appearing before
 the leaves, leaves silky-gray beneath, drying black &c.
 Your plant has a "smooth" ovary, & leaves glaucous
 beneath, bright green & shining above. So all this if
 you turn to Willd. p. 666 (which you quote) you will
 note his Char. [Character], "amentis coaetaneis". Upon the [which?]
 then, Muhlenberg's [Henry Muhlenberg] plant, described by himself & Willd. [Carl Ludwig Willdenow]
 must belong to Barratt's tribe "Cordatae" where we
 have all the required Char's [Characters]. Aments with the leaves,
 smooth ovaries, & leaves. Add to all this that Muhlenberg's
 figure of the leaf, so far as it goes, points the same way, &
        