
          Ansd [Answered] Feby [February] 5th 1833


 Nov'r [November] 19th


 Dear Sir, 


 I have just found in looking into 
 my attic a fresh cut shoot of the Ficus Indica, 
 "not that kind for fruit renowned,
 But such as at this day to Indians known 
 the Western Ind. or Deccan spreads her arms 
 Branching so broad and long, that in the ground 
 the bending twigs take root, and daughters grow 
 about the mother tree, a pillar'd shade -- 
 High over-arch'd, and echoing walks between: 
 these of the Indian herdsman, shunning heat,
 shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds 
 off loop-holes cut through thicket shade." 


 The specimen wh. accompanies this -- I cut 
 from a tree growing upon a plain in St. Croix. 
 One is more attracted by the strangeness of 
 the sister grove, than by any beauty either 
 in outline or foliage -- but I wish I could 
 have transported to you a bread-fruit-tree -- 
 wh. I think boasts the most beautiful 
 structure of leaf I have ever noticed -- I do
        