I leave home this afternoon for New York, on my way to the Alleghany Mountains in the north of Virginia, where I expect to meet my excellent friend Mr. Sullivant, of Ohio. We hope to trace the more westerly ranges of the mountains down to North Carolina and Tennessee, to revisit my old ground in Ashe County, etc., and to continue our journey farther south into Georgia, coming out at Augusta on the Savannah River; thence I may go to Charleston and return by water. But if time allows I shall perhaps run through upper Georgia and Alabama, to the Tennessee River, down that to the Ohio, and thence home. My chief object is to obtain live plants and seeds; we shall be too late in the season for the best botanizing, yet I think we shall be in the best time for Compositæ. Mr. Sullivant will turn his attention primarily to the Musci; but we shall let nothing escape. Thus at last I may hope to be somewhat useful to you as a correspondent for your Garden. I learn within a few days that Ross’s expedition has been heard of from Rio. Doubtless Joseph will have reached home before this letter arrives, and I may congratulate him--and yourself--upon his most gratifying success, which has laid a broad and sure foundation for his scientific eminence. His Flora Antarctica must be of the very highest interest and importance. TO JOHN TORREY. ASHEVILLE, Saturday, September 30th, 1843. MY DEAR FRIEND,--Your two letters which awaited my arrival--the one at Jefferson, the other at Asheville--were indeed refreshing. Our long journey through Virginia brought us behind our estimated time, and hurried the later and more interesting part of our operations; for Sullivant was getting very impatient, as I wrote in my last, just as we were hurrying away from Jefferson. I doubt if I got anything of much interest in Virginia, except Buckley’s (and Nuttall’s) Andromeda, Rhamnus parvifolius on the waters of Green-brier, (where did Pursh get it?), Heuchera pubescens in fruit and Heuehera hispida Pursh!! out of flower and fruit, so that I detected it by the leaves only (and got good roots), not far from where Pursh discovered it, but more west, on the frontiers of a range of mountains where this very local species doubtless abounds.