
          Wms. Coll. Dec. 4th 1820.

Dear Sir,

Your letter came three days ago after I sent my
last, but it ought to have been here four days before. I
am confident, if your letters go to the office soon after date,
that they are delayed in Albany a week. Our N.Y. papers
have been thus delayed - but the P. Master [then/there?] has been
spoken to on the subject, & they now come regularly - but as
the mail leaves for this town soon after the arrival from N.Y.,
I presume the letters are not prepared for distribution in [season?].
I know of no way to remedy the evil - & your letters must run
this chance. As I wrote you last week, I will only say that
I sent a box of plants for Mr. [Prince?] & a bundle of crypts. in
it for you, & all to your direction. I hope it is now in N. Y. 
for I gave all the directions I could to get it on board the Steam
Boat - & paid for the additional trouble, at any rate, of the
man's seeing it on board at all events. Still it may be weather_
bound in Albany. I can do no more - for I have no friend in
Albany that I can ask to attend to the matter, consistently. So
much for this. My letter inquires about your visit to Phila. - of
which you said nothing. You wrote me, however, before you started
for Phila., & did not tell me your books on Crypt. were gone. I
suppose you mean your books with Memorandam for surely Mr. Ea
ton can not study them now, & he has not studied them greatly yet.

I am much obliged to you, for your remarks on the plants. I
am sorry you can not settle all the Carices - & you regret it as much
as I do. Some of the specimens are surely very near each other - but
some are widely difft. which seem to be undescribed. it is curious
that you are brought back to the names of several, as I first named
them when sent to you - &, as I had only Eaton, it speaks well for
his descriptions. That there are new specimens I have little doubt_
but who shall out with them, unless the definitions of all the spe
cies are at hand, & the figures or specimens of very many. I hope
you have so many European specimens, as well as of our country,
& so many books about you, that you will be able to tell
many more soon, & to determine what must be new. What
does [Schkuhr?] cost? & how full ^ [added: is] it? What is the price of Willd. [Willdenow] &
how full is he on the difficult genera?

It seems to me from
Muhl. [Muhlenberg] that the Carex, you called var. of scoparia, is the true one,
& the one commonly called so is C. [frotucaule?], or another yet unknown.
Did you look at Muhl's [?] or get any one to do it to compare
for you? And can not you get specimen's of those doubtful in your
mind, from [Penn?].?  Seems to me, that some will send them to you?
I am glad to hear that C. [logofens?] has another name - but I can
not read your name from Nutt. &, I have not him, tho' I expect
him ere long. On the Carices, I want to make a few [remarks?].
        