
          no danger to my people. How strongly, and how 
badly this whole affair has been managed! In sooth, sir, I 
think we have the worst and most corrupt government 
in Christendom, I had almost said in the world. 
[Crossed out: To return] It is strange that [Crossed out : the party] [Added: your Governor] with all [crossed out: their] [added: his] spoils, 
should want to dock your salary for not botanizing in 
the snows of winter! when so many inferior creatures are
fattening on the public wealth!

Paulo majora canamus, let us return to Botany!
I said, in my last, that [added: I] inclined to consider the smaller taxoid fruit
a Podocarpus. I did not there advert to the circumstance that this 
genus is monoecious, while Taxus is dioecious, and you say
this plant has the flowers of a Taxus. Considering it a Taxus, I 
think it must be a new species. The fruit which you have
is mature, yet the cupula [crossed out: does not] [added: scarcely] half covers the nut, 
while in Taxus it is usual, I think, to cover two thirds
leaving only the apex bare.

I will here add all that I can at present tell you of my 
Anon. dioscoroides. Glabrous and succulent -root perennial?
large (for the size of the plant) and spreading -stem 
6-10 inches high, sheathed at the base; leaves cordate, ovate
alternate, on long petioles, 5-7, crowded towards the summit
of the stem, 7-9 nerved- peduncles axillary, nodding, 
sub 2 flowered; -calyx petaloid, deeply 4 parted, (almost
to the base) divisions acute, expanding, at length reflexed, -stained towards
their base with purple -filamens [added: 4], large [added: dark] purple -anthers 2 lobed, yellow -
style none? or short -stigmas x -2? many cleft? berry? (or capsular?)
2 celled? many seeded. Evidently allied to Trillium, Paris? Convallaria
and pertaining to the natural order Smilaceae.

I see that Nuttall says (Collections towards a Flora of Arkansas) that Villaria is "polygamous
and dioecious" - that Mr. Elliott's V. trachysperma is the fertile, and his cordata (the
lacunosa of others?) the sterile plant. This appears strange to me as I have not seen
the two growing near each other. The large plant is plentiful here, and I have not

x I made no notes at the time, and I forget the appearanceof the stigmas!
        