
          Philadelphia Sept. [September] 11th 1854


 Prof. [Professor] John Torrey, N. Y. [New York]


 Dear Sir,


 I received, this morning your note with the specimen of what
 you justly, I think, consider as belonging to the genus Cronosoma of Nuttall.
 If it is a Cronosoma, certainly it is not the Californica, as you will perceive
 by the small parcel inclosed. I would have prefered to send you my entire spec.
 which had two flower only with many top leaves, ( you know that N S specimens
 were always exiguisima) but I could not [do?] it in a letter without much risk,
 and I hope this will be suffickent for your purpose. Your specimen belongs
 evidently to a more delicate shrub: The leaves are much smaller, different
 in form and the flowers are on very small pedunder, with long and narrow
 petals , &c.


 I had the presumption to accept from Dr Heerman the [?] difficult
 task, for me, to determine about one hundred plants which he had collected
 in an ingeneering expedition in California. I trusted, it is true, in yours 
 and Dr Gray's asssistance. I did not expect so much hard labor, not to
 prove myself so incompetent. Happyly I found some help in your Dr Hilgard,
 a nephw of Engelinan and a very clever young man. Our investigation
 is finished as far as Solanaceae which we will take up tomorrow
 morning; but farther than Decandole's 13th volume, we have no materials
 to study. You would, of course, oblige as very much by sending us the names
 of the five sample of Erioyonrum which you had from Dr Gray if any
 new, please to describe them, they will be published at once under your names
 no 1 and 2 are probably too imperfect no 3 is not described in Hooker nor Nuttall
 Pl. Gambel no 4 seems to me a form of E. Simproris in a [?] advanced stage

        