
          Recd Nov 17th                    Philadelphia 3d Nov 1836
and Dec. 10th

My good friend,

The enclosed letter was
written a month ago & detained by the detention of the friend
who was to go to N Yk [New York].  I have no letters from you & know
not if you are going to give your lectures this winter or continue
a winter survey!  I amafraid you shall have little leisure to
answer my various letters & enquiries.

The Gentiana alboriridis or [Gentiana obtusifolia], I have ascertained
to be the [Gentiana ochroleuca] of many authors & one of the [Gentiana saponaria] L
Pray read Linneus 14th edition & you will see that he says his G.
saponaria has ochroleneous flowers! fl. vertic leaves 2 inches long
1/2 broad.  What do you think of that?  & of our saponarias!!!
with blue flowers.

I have found this year in Oct. [October] the original Kuhnia eupatorioides
of L, at the very place where Kuhn procured the plant he carried to L.
& have collected 3 Var [varieties] of it, one of which is the K. criteria of many
This is a rare philen. plant, growing on the Schuykill.  I have many
specimens & some for you.  I have written a dissertation on the genus to send 
to England with roots & specimens by a friend of London the journalist.
Pray tell me if you ever saw the plant alive.  & where? that I may mention
it.  I expect you only saw it dry.  Who gave you the specimen?  This has
a whate pappus.  I believe I gave you my [Kuhnia elliptica] of Cumberland Falls
totally different altho' you said it was the L. plant & my [Kuhnia fulva] your
[Kuhnia entonia] has fulvous pappus etc.  [Kuhnia glutinosa] Elliot is another N. Sp.
I have them all 4.  I now want your [Kuhnia cutonia] with white papus, there is
no such sp.  Gaertner did not describe his.

Have you seen Nuttal?  He says he has brought 1400 new plants! 
but how many are in Hooker, Lindley, etc?  but he has a better luck still it is
said in a good inheritance.  I am now studying Hooker's flora 1st Vol.
What a fine work!  Yet how full of blunders! and new genera unseen!
While others are made on microscipical characters!  How many blunders of
yours he exposes! and of all botanists, yet makes nearly as many himself.
He has bad genera, bad species, bad varieties, bad names, bad redactions
to families!  How far has the 2d volume been published?  We have
not got it here as yet.  To correct all the errors of Botanists is
almost a hopeless task.  I find a difficulty in it, & in procuring proper
printers for [added:my] botanical work.  I must confine myself again I believe to
publish my novelties & let the blunders alone for awhile.  I wish you
would spare me the trouble; but you wont, because you follow the very same
steps, of blending, confusisng, mixing, misnaming etc.  Meantime I am
as usual, your friend.

C.S. Rafinesque

        