P9 
a delicacy fried in flour and oil. The plant 
looks like a non-climbing form of the kudzu vine. 
It is called "Ko hua". That is the worst about 
going on trains and boats, one cannot go up to 
things one passes en route and some things one 
never sees again. 
I am now on "Terra Sancta" here as regards 
plant localities are concerned. Dr. Henry and 
Mr. Wilson had Ichang as headquarters for many 
years and when one sees Primula obconica and P. 
sinensi s as wild roadside plants, one gets a 
sort of feeling like a Christian who wanders thru 
Palestine or a Mohammedan v/hen he sees Mecca and 
Medina. Just now we got a lovely wild plant in 
full bloom. Daphne genkwa , its purple-blue thyrses 
are seen all over the hillslopes and in banks. 
This really is a gorgeous spring flower and of 
such a striking color: 
They had a very severe winter here; many 
bamboos are entirely brown; tangerines lost all 
their leaves, so did Nandina domestica and tender 
succulent plants, such as Musas, Cannas, some 
Cactae, etc., were very hard hit. 
My interpreter from Peking is picking up the 
' dialect here and is getting more useful; a guide 
I have engaged in Hankow and who pretended to 
know all about the country turns out to be a rather 
bad specimen and needs lots of training to become 
of real use. V?e may find some of the men Dr. Henry 
and Mr. Wilson employed, but these men have flown 
to all sides of the compass and they are hard to 
locate . 
I just think of Prof. Reimer and his idea of 
getting a hundred pounds of seeds of a wild pear 
straight away here in Ichang. I wish I could 
bring him here and have him size up the situation. 
It may take a white man a few months to bring to- 
gether a hundred pounds of seeds. When a Com- 
missioner of Customs cannot even do this, a man 
who has so much standing with the natives, what 
can an ordinary mortal do? 
Well, I am also busy in getting details about 
Chinese bean-cheese making; it is getting to be a 
very interesting process in which fungi and person- 
al experiences play their parts. I do not know as 
yet enough about it to be able to write it all down. 
Under date of March ?5, 1917, from Brooksville, Fla. , Mr. 
Fairchild wrote Mr. Meyer the following letter: 
December 31, I917. 
