Botanists -- United States -- Correspondence; Gray, Asa, 1810-1888 -- Correspondence
As to the Sandwich Island plants, I hardly know what to say. Supposing
they might be of some use to you in connection with other collections, I
copied the brief notes I made on studying them very hurriedly indeed,
and placed them at your disposal. I did not possess sufficient means for
determining them in a satisfactory manner, and fear I have committed
errors in many cases. You will doubtless detect these at once, and if,
on the whole, you think proper to publish them in the “Companion to the
Botanical Magazine,” may I ask you to revise the paper, and freely make
such corrections and alterations as you think proper. In that case, if
you think the notes worthy of publication, I should not object; yet you
are equally at liberty to use them in any other way. The parcel
contained a specimen of a Composita (from Mouna Kea) which puzzled me
extremely, and I was unable to ascertain its genus by Lessing. The
anthers are free, or slightly coherent, in all the flowers I examined.
Since the parcel was transmitted to you I have seen a specimen of Rhus
(from Sandwich Islands) resembling the one in the parcel, except in
having pubescent leaves. The latter is therefore improperly
characterized, and perhaps will prove to be a well-known species. I
shall hope to receive other and more complete specimens from Mr. Diell,
and if I am so fortunate will gladly share with so esteemed a
correspondent as Dr. Hooker. I hope to send you a parcel by the first
opportunity that occurs of sending direct to Glasgow: when I will put up
specimens of the mosses you desire, and will send a copy of the
“Gramineæ and Cyperaceæ” for the gentleman at Paris who wishes it.
It is so troublesome and expensive to get them bound that I should much
prefer, if any of your friends and correspondents should desire them, to
send the specimens with labels and loose title-pages, at $4 per volume,
each comprising, as you are aware, one hundred species. I may in that
way furnish larger and often more perfect or more numerous specimens
than in the bound copies. I hope to publish the third (and perhaps also
the fourth) volume early next autumn.
Allow me to express my thanks for your kind assistance in various ways,
and to say that I shall hereafter (D. V.) prosecute the study of our
lovely science with increased zeal. I remain, with sentiments of the
highest esteem,
Your much obliged friend,
ASA GRAY.
October 10, 1836.
I also beg your acceptance of a copy of a little elementary botanical
work published last spring. I do not expect it to possess any particular
interest in your eyes; but in this country, unfortunately, no popular
and at the same time scientific elementary treatise has been generally
accessible to botanical students, and such a work was so greatly needed
that I felt constrained to make the attempt, since no better-qualified
person could be induced to undertake the labor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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