
          What delightful Auxiliaries we should have had, in
 our researches, if Endlicher's Genera Plantarum had ap:
 peared in time to have been made the basis of DeCandolle's
 Prodromus, and your own Flora!  There would, then
 have been such harmony in the arrangement - such
 uniformity in the nomenclature, such facility in the
 references!  We should then have had three standard
 works, adequate to all our wants, for generations to
 come; and which, in fact, could never have been
 superseded; but would merely have required, in
 successive editions, the gradual modification, and
 correction, called for by progressive knowledge.
 I do not, now, hope to live to see such a harmonius
 system of vegetables, as I had indicated : but I do
 think some such plan might be advantageously adopted,
 and that the time is coming when it will be.
 The segregated and independant labors of the
 Botanists of the present day can only furnish the
 disjointed materials, which in the plastic hands
 of some future master, will doubtless be permanent
 I only regret, that the excellent works referred to
 could not have been made, in my own day, the
 nucleus of such a uniform and harmonius
 system, as I believe will hereafter be called for,
 and established.


     I have not detected any ma:
 terial error, thus far, in your Flora: but, on looking
 cursorily over the volume, I perceived a slight
 mistake, in your remarks on the Cicuta maculata,
 which does injustice to Dr. Bigelow. It is there stated,
 that the fact of the primary views of the leaves
 running to the notches, instead of the points, of the
 serrations, was first noticed by myself: - whereas
 the circumstance is distinctly mentioned by Dr. B.
 in the second edition of his Boston Flora; and I believe
 my attention was first directed to it by his remarks - though

        