
          Botanic Garden, Tuesday Evening 3rd Decr. [December]


 My Dear Friend 


 I must reply hastily, before I retire 
 to your favor (sent by your brother) of the 28th 
 ult. [ultimate]. I found a note from your brother in the 
 P.O. [Post Office] Monday Morning, but he had sailed, and I sent 
 to town for the parcel. Glad to see Fremont's 
 list. I have been looking at odds and ends of 
 time at his Compositae; and should he really 
 want it, there remain now few that would much
 trouble of me in making out a list for him. But 
 I should not like to bestow much time on those few. 
 Supposing that he would do nothing with them till 
 he went again, I had partly carried out a notion
 I spoke of you of: viz. to characterize what new 
 genera these might be in Bost. Nat. Hist. [Boston Naturel History] Society 
 to secure them, and eke out a little paper on 
 Gorethrogyne & Lessingia. I have written out the
 characters of 4 new genera, 3 of them remarkably 
 distinct ones, and curious, and of two I 
 have superb drawings and good descriptions made 
 by Sprague. I thought of reading (by title a little 
 paper to-morrow evening, when I am obliged to be 
 in town. I write in the first person but cite the 
 genera from Torr. [Torrey] & Gray fl. [flora?] [med?]. If Fremont wishes us to 
 use them for the Flora, I suppose he will not object to 
 this course. But if you think so, tell me at 
 once. That Southern Oregon-California-Rocky-Mountain 
 region must yet yield many new forms of Compositae.
 Fremont must have lost his best collections. 


 I had taken great credit to myself for having 
 already despatched, by last steamer, these for Bentham. 
 So it is too late to add the localities. 
        