
          Recd Jany 9th

Boston 4 Nov 1862

My dear Sir

I have received with pleasure from
you lines of 20 [?] wish our communication
was more frequent. No one can be more delighted with Dr. Gray's
advent among the botanicals here than myself. I firmly believe that
the only thing requisite to awaken the [?] sprirts at Harvard
was some one of his acquirements & spirit, and I do not doubt that
we shall at lenght have a school of botany deserving the name,
but he must not think that the commencement will be easy.
There is an immense stone of toil laid up for him. But as the French
say "Courage en avant." In plants the only thing new I have is
an Oenothera [?] from [see or?] from the [?] it is I believe
more like Douglas's procumbens that anything else. It is in full
flowers - flowers dull very pale lilac large - the leaves below are very
numerous [?] those on the flowering there are 3 times as
large linear entire but I will not give you a description but by
the first opportunity through Dr. Gray will send you dried specimens
of this & one or two others - all are from California which have flowered 
with me. Besides these I have a seedling with the ticket a Scilla
like bulb [added: probably Scilla (caucasica) esculenta] {/} [Cardinals?]. Hosackia with a single white
flower small, and a Podalyria? When they are in a fit
state specimens of all or any will be at your service.

And now for minerology. The only tourmalines I have
seen fit for polarization are some obtained in early days by
Dr. C.T. [Charles] Jackson from Paris Maine. I saw one in the hands of
the lapidary this spring which he told me was cut in slices
        