
          Recd. [Received] Sept. 17th
[Aud?] May 28th 1839.' Dayton, August 27th, 1838.
Dear Sir,
Your favor of the 4th [inst?] has been received, and
an opportunity offering, I send you a few plants, none of them new perhaps,
but some of them subject to some doubt or uncertainties, on which I
should like to have some information. I have numbered the speci-
mens and shall refer to them accordingly in my suggestion or in-
quiries.
No [Number] 1. Doctor Frank, a German Botanist, who visited this neigh-
borhood, called it a Kuhnia, certainly improperly; and others call it
Aster Amydalinus, which does not satsify me. Your edition of 1826
describes that as a foot high and the scales of the calyx lanceolate, obtuse.
This plant I have never seen less than three feet high and and sometimes
it is six. Its only locality here is in wet prairies.
No [Number] 2. This beautiful plant I have not been able to determine. It is
frequently very much branched, 12 to 20 inches high, found in dry
prairies.
No [Number] 3. I sent a specimen of this to Dr Short, who called it the
Shortii, yet it does not agree with Riddell's description, which is
copied in Eaton's Manual of 1836, and which Riddell says was
made from dried speciments. I wrote down a description from nu-
merous specimens growing before me. "Leaves all entire, pubescent, rough.
Upper ones linear-subulate; middle ones linear-lanceolate, sessile; lower ones cordate-
sagittate, on very long, winged petioles. Stem rough, with slender branches, slightly pan-
icled. Peduncles scaly; scales subulate, appressed. Calyx imbricate, cylindric. Flower purple,
with yellow disks, very similar to those of the A. laevis. 3 feet high. Dry prairies. Sept."
If this plant is the Shortii, the description is very erroneous.
No [Number] 4 is a Solidago growing in wet prairies, 4 to 6 feet high,
with a triangular stem, arching almost like the raspberry.
No [Number] 5 is found in the same place with the preceding, a little late.
I have not been able to find a satisfactory description of either of the two
last plants.
No [Number] 6 is from the same locality with the two last. I had marked it
as the S. stricta; but Riddell has made a new species of it, and named
it the Ohioensis. Yet it still appears to me to answer the description of
the stricta, and if they differ, the variation should be more marked in
the books.                      [up - wish?]                            "I. puberula" on the same sheet. - [Lardly?] -
        