
          Recd. July 5
And 6th

Lockport July 1st 1858

Prof. J. Torrey

Dear Sir

My apol-
ogy for writing to you is this. I attended
lectures at your Coll of Phys. & Surg. last
winter & I am trying to study Botany
some this summer & I have found a
plant that I cannot satisfactorily any-
lize & I make bold to send what of it to
you I [well?] can in a letter & describe it as
well as I can & ask. is it an endogenous or
exogenous plant?

I find the plant most abundant & most
luxurient near the bottom of ravines. on
the south sides in such situations as to be
shaded most of the time - not in the water.
but near it or near where it has been running

The first that attracts attention is its large
dark green maple ^ [added: shaped] leaves covering the [?]
& standing on perioles from ten to eighteen
inches in length between the leaves, [or] [on?] raising
them we perceive a bunch of white flowers
on a peduncle slightly shorter than the
petiole & standing between two of the latter

        