If I remember aright, though, he said the surfaces of the leaf look north and south. You say the edges? How is this? Compare notes with Lapham....
What do you think I am about now? Revising genera of Myrtaceæ for Exploring Expedition collection.
In these exotic orders I frequently find the genera so at loose ends that I cannot make the plants of our collection lie comfortably till I have given the genera a good shaking up. I should be tempted to do much more of this if I could work at Hooker’s, or in Paris. It is quite as well not, as it would cost no end of time....
I have found some Fouquiera seedlings up in the Garden. I am right about it; not Torrey. The leaf is not axillary and its petiole inclosed in the spine; but the spine is a hardened inferior portion of the petiole that persists, and from which the rest falls away clean....
TO W. J. HOOKER.
Cambridge, August 3, 1853.
My dear Sir William,—I will endeavor to get some account of Shakerdom for you. They are a queer people indeed.
Manilla paper[26] is made of old manilla rope, which is largely used by our shipping. But what plant yields the manilla hemp for this cordage I have not the means of knowing, that is, whether the Musa textilis or no. I have been promised specimens of the stem of the plant, etc. But the climate makes our countrymen indolent there, and forgetful. I will ask for statistics as to the paper manufacture....
I shall be pleased to have you figure as many of our ferns as you can; and pray give names to all new species without hesitation. They will be more fitly named by the describer than by any one else.
I note with satisfaction what you write about genera of ferns. This pushing a single character (as venation) without regard to consequences, and giving it the same importance when it does not accord with habit as when it does, is the fault of most botanologists who restrict their view to one subject or one idea only. I am glad that you will carefully revise the genera on your own judgment.