[This letter is incomplete and bears no signature, but is written in the hand of Joseph Dalton Hooker.] JDH has received a letter from Asa Gray about his travels with his wife [Jane Loring Gray]. He hopes California will be good for the Gray's health, he & his wife Hyacinth Hooker hope to visit the Gray's in America in the autumn. Hyacinth is recovering well from childbirth & the baby [Richard Symonds Hooker] is healthy apart from the after effects of vaccination. Gray's account of Mexico & Cypresses made JDH jealous. JDH discusses arrangements he is making over the estate of the deceased George Bentham, including personal possessions such as the correspondence of Jeremy & Sir Samuel Bentham, some unopened. JDH is working on THE FLORA OF BRITISH INDIA part twelve covering Anacardiaceae. He has completed Aristolochiaceae & is now doing the difficult genus of Piperaceae, in which many of Miquel & De Candolle's species must be assigned as 'unknowable'. He notes that Polygonum was a hard task & that P. virginianum grows in the Himalayas. William Thiselton-Dyer is managing the garden work so JDH deals with the arboretum as well as the scientific work. Nobody has been appointed to the Glasgow Chair [of Botany]. He explains some controversy over the fact McNab was initially appointed by Government before Balfour had even resigned, at the expense of other candidates such as Bower & Ward. JDH thinks the botnaical results of the Kilimanjaro Expedition are disappointing he hopes for better from Everard im Thurn's ascent of Roraima. JDH reports that his sister Maria McGIlvray has recovered from illness. MR Newman has opened a farming school in San Francisco.