I premise that in New England we have two places where several alpine plants are stranded at lower levels than they ought, peculiar conditions of configuration and shelter having preserved them, while the exposed higher grounds have lost them. They are Willoughby Mountain and the Notch of Mt. Mansfield, Vermont. As to your III. Of the whole list of alpine plants of Oregon and northward and not of California, I can put my hand upon only two that are yet known in California, viz., Armania verna and Vaccinium cæspitosum, which comes in its var. arbuscula only. There is a great lack of alpine arctic plants in California. First, because there is not much place for them now; secondly, because there have been such terrible and vast volcanic deposits--lava and ashes--that they must have been all killed out. But for all these matters we shall one of these days have fuller and surer data--after my day. Well, I must stop.... TO A. DE CANDOLLE. CAMBRIDGE, June 29, 1886. MY DEAR DE CANDOLLE,--Your letter and inclosure of the 15th inst. gave me much pleasure. Not only had I a natural curiosity to know more of Coulter,[138] but also I find it important to know his routes in Mexico and California. At Los Angeles, last year, I fell in with one of the “old settlers” who knew him, and who accompanied him on that expedition into the Arizona desert on the lower Colorado. Mr. Ball will ascertain and let me know other particulars of the man, and the date of his death, which probably occurred not long after that last letter to you, from Paris. In various ways I am convinced that I am on the verge of superannuation. Still I work on; and now, dividing the orders with Mr. Watson (who, though not young, is eight or ten years my junior), we are working away at the Polypetalæ of the “Synoptical Flora of North America,” with considerable heat and hope. But it is slow work! Tuckerman, our lichenologist, has gone before us! I shall in a few days send you a copy of the memorial of him which I contributed to the Council report of the American Academy of Sciences and am having reprinted in the “American Journal of Science” for July. My wife is fairly well.... She is always busy; and we both enjoy life with a zest, being in all respects very happily situated, particularly in having plenty to do. Let us hope that you may still be able to give us better accounts of Madame de Candolle and of yourself; and believe me to be always, Yours affectionately, ASA GRAY. TO J. D. DANA. BOTANIC GARDEN, CAMBRIDGE, MASS., September 20, 1886. MY DEAR DANA,--Well! “the books” have just come. I suppose you are in no hurry for notices of them, and would prefer short ones.... I rather like to do such things incog., as in the “Nation,” in which I sometimes take a shot at this or that. I and wife are well,--very. Had a week in Old Oneida, which still looks natural. I am grinding away at “Flora,” and probably shall be found so doing when I am called for.