
          Columbus Geo. 23rd Sept 1854

Dear Sir

Enclosed you will find some specimens of the female flowers
of the forestieria. I hope they will be of service to you I should be much
pleased to see your account of the genus when published, as you informed
me in some of your previous letters, that you intended writing it at some
early day. I am obliged to you for the account you gave me of Mr. Bentham's
views of the fructification of the Arachis and so far as concerns the A.
hypogea I think him altogether mistaken, my observations having resulted in the
conviction that it has but one kind of flowers and all of them fertile!

A few summers since, whilst studying our Slyosanthes my attention was
attracted to the note on p. 354 Vol 1 of the flora of N.A. and came to the cinclusion
that his views were such as stated in your letter. On examination I
found in the axils of the lower leaves a few flowered (2 to 3 or 4) one sided raceme
the flowers consisting merely of a minute, conical, pointed germ with a black lip,
situated between two [bracts?]; this bearing the ovule at its extremity, gradually
elongated until reaching the earth, which it penetrated, and getting beyond
the reach of light, the end gradually enlarged and ripened into fruit. Nearer
the extremities of the branches, were petal bearing flowers arranged in the same
manner on apparently very long penduncles (1 to 1 1/2 in) all withering and falling
away together, these I thought  were barren. Thus I let the matter rest until
this summer, when my attention being drawn to the plant again. I concluded
that my previous observations had been altogether too hurried and superficial
and that my opinion on the matter was still, rather the result of Mr. Bentham's
authority, than my own personal examination. I then determined not to stop
until I saw the truth of the matter for myself. I commenced withthe upper
flowers on pulling away the sepals and petals I found the two formed another
as perfect as in any other flowers, but what I had before taken for a peduncle
proved to be a very long, slender, tubular calyx, through which there was no

        