
          difficulty in tracing the style to its base, and to a germ situated between two
bracts, conical, pointed and with a minute ovule, in short in every respect  identical
with those fertile germs which I had before found, achlamideous as I supposed, Why should
these be barren? Now the thing was to determine whether they were so or not and
dropepd off without being developed, for it is evidently the fertilized ovule that stimulates
these peduncles [added: or stipes as you call them] to lengthen themselves and seek the [crossed out: ground] earth. Day after day my
searc was vain, but at least I did succeed in finding a germ elongated to the 1/4
of an inch or more with the withered flower attached to its point by the still
adherent style. This settled the question in my own mind. For if I had found
convincing proof that one of these petal bearing flowers was fertile, I could not see
why the whole should not be so. And further the germ being very minute and contained
in an enlargement at the base of the calyx, the latter may have fallen off &
entirely disappeared from those germs that I had supposed to be achlamideous, in
short that all the flowers will be found petal bearing if examined early enough. This
morning before sitting down to write I wish to reexamine the whole matter, and
went into my garden where I have a few plants of a new variety, with upright stalks
(those generally cultivated being entirely prostrate) in which the fruit stalks hang
in clusters around the stem exactly like aerial rootlets seeking the earth andoften have to grow the length of 12 or 18 inches or even more before reaching it.
Much to my surprise and delight on every plant I found specimens varying
in length from 1 to 6 inches and still bearing the withered flower at its point!
On afterwards [crossed out: on] going to a lot where the prostrate variety was growing, I was
equally successful in getting specimens of the same kind. This [added: is] all a little matter
and I must ask your pardon for troubling, you with so much of it. I think that in 
the smallest and most insignificant things our views should be correct if possible.

I also enclose some grasses, the larger I supposed to be the Agrostis longifolia(Eaton 8th Ed. p 118.) but on turning to Dr. Gray's Flora I found that he quotes
the longifolia of yourself, which is Eaton's as a synonim of his Vilfa aspera, and there
are discrepancies between Gray's & Eaton's descriptions that I cannot reconcile.
The other agrees pretty well with Eaton's A. Virginica (p. 117) but does not
with the Virginica as described by Elliot ( Vol. 1. p. 139) The other is a [crossed out: plan] grass

        