
          Cambridge, Monday Morng. [Morning]


 My dear friend, 


 I wrote you a long letter some time 
 ago, but have almost forgotten what it was about. I now 
 want you to make some examinations for me & to 
 "report progress" very speedily. 


 Carex heterostachya, Torr. [Torrey] (Sill. Jour. Septr./46 [Silliman's American Journal of Science, September 1846]) Of this 
 we have only one (very young) specimen, labelled by 
 Dewey himself, but which I instantly saw bore a clear 
 resemblance to his own C. [Carex] Crawei, & and from which I find 
 that I cannot in fact distinguish it. Still I think it 
 impossible to believe that he should have described the 
 same species twice, and one paper!, without noticing the 
 similarity; & I should therefore at once infer mistake
 in the specimen but I find that as to all important 
 characters the specific phrases of the (two?) species are 
 absolutely convertible! Now please look into this, & if 
 the plants are the same, which name bears priority? 
 I suppose your own was known to him long before Crawe's
 plant, tho' published simultaneously with it. If the plants 
 are really distinct please enclose me a good working
 specimen of your Carex [Carex] heterostachya.


 Carex Torreyi, Tuck. [Tuckerman]. What is to be done with this, & is 
 it really found in N.Y. [New York]? Tuckn. [Tuckerman] refers it to you, &
 and you in the [N.Y?] Fl. [Flora] [A flora of the state of New-York, vol. 2] quote him! Does it exist at all, in
 our part of the world, or has there been confusion in
 Hooker's Herb. [Herbarium] where it seems Tuck. [Tuckerman] found it? Finally,
 is the plant anything but C. [Carex] pallescens? I have not 
 any very high opinion of Mr. Tuckerman's acumen.
        