
          Rec'd & ans'd [Received & answered]
 March 20th 1850


 Society Hill, S. Car. [South Carolina], March 15th 1850


 My Dear Sir, 


 Your letter of Septr. [September] last has remained
 so long unanswered, because I was in constant expectation of
 the packages you were so good as to send me, & I waited to
 acknowledge them. That have not yet arrived, & Mr. Carey
 writes me that Wiley cannot now find them. If the
 Schweinitzian specimens are lost, I shall never forgive John
 Wiley for his carelessness, as they weould be invaluable &
 cannot be replaced. You could not have conferred a
 greater favor upon me, than by such a present, & I am
 ready to return the favor in kind, or by such other specimens
 as I may be able to furnish.


 I was not aware before, that you had published the Tuckahoe.
 Your name being first should have been retained,
 but I suppose it was unknown. In saying that no Mycologist
 regards this product as a Fungus, I meant at this
 present time. It must share the fate of most, if not all, the
 Sclerotia, for not having any organization that can give it the
 character of an autonymous vegetable. From the many specimens
 I have examined, I infer that it is not a growth upon
 roots, or wood buried in the earth, but an actual transformation 

        