From E. B. Ramsay 20 October 1832

My Dear Henslow

I have frequently intended writing to you & have only delayed untill I knew you were returned & quietly settled in your comfortable house at Camb. & had received the usual [illeg.] of your useful & interesting avocations. I hope & trust your dear & excellent wife is well & enjoying renewed health & strength. Mrs Ramsay has been a subject of great anxiety to me all the summer - thank God she is recovering. I have to congratulate you (wh I do most cordially) your preferment. I hope it is worth your acceptance & is a substantial advantage to yourself & family. I have also to express my pleasure at finding my nephew William Ramsay is to be under your careful & excellent tuition. When I corresponded about a tutor for him I never adverted to the possibility of your receiving him & when his father told me of the prospect I congratulated him on the many advantages I anticipated for his son. He is I believe a good lad, I fear somewhat constitutionally indolent & perhaps his [illeg.] youth may be injurious to activity & mental energy. I have a request made to me to introduce to you a Mr Mundie who desires introduction & advice regarding his son being entered at Camb. I am told that he has a letter to you from Lyell the geologist & I am sure he requires no further claim upon you for your advice & assistance. If you see him please to say I had mentioned him to you & that I was from home when applied to or I should have done it sooner. I have at length commenced the arrangement of my British plants. With my [illeg.] for M's & with some of my better lichens I shall have a respectable collection. It has been indeed a melancholy occupation; I tried it several times before but I could not till lately go on with the work & now I find a melancholy pleasure in retracing the scenes & times with [illeg.] many specimens presented. I must admit however that the most interesting & the rarer part of my collection is from your contributions. I have got Hooker's Flora (2d edit.) & am much pleased with it. He is an exquisitely clear botanical writer & I rejoice at the frequent mention of your own name. I am glad that he arranges the Flora in the Lin. System. I still think that for a Local flora it is the best. The natural system being a grouping of families allied by certain analogies - what do we learn when of so many families there is but one individual & therefore if its nature as a group we can know nothing. I doubt not Lindley is a first rate botanist - his introduction to the natural orders & his "first principles" show that he is so. [illeg.], but why shd that he say that in studying Lin. botany we were only seeming to learn. I should like to ask what is there to learn respecting British plants wh the E. Flora does not teach. Surely that is the most complete Flora of a country ever produced or am I wrong. There was a precision & neatness in the [illeg.] that almost makes me regret the change of the language. I am most unreasonable to beg, after the kindness I have received - but any such supernumeraries of plants wh you may spare & which I may not be likely to have will be gratefully received. Some plants common in England I never happened to see: one is the Hyd. morsusranae. I am strong in [illeg.] of that I had the Lath. [illeg.] but I fear it is rare. I have from an old herbarium seen Hyb. from Glastonbury Tor that is what your Sir J. E. Smith used to call a "good thing" I have a friend who sends me the [illeg.] & I have set him to hunt for it & [illeg.] specimens. Bye the bye why do you say that Senecio squalidus is not native on walls of Oxon. Why shd a plant so destitute of moment be cultivated or brought into the country? Do you know from whom dear M. could have got a very fine specimen of Cyp. calceolus marked from woods at Craven Yorksh? I have been spending the last week at Dalhousie Castle - you know Lord D. has lately returned from India where he was commander in chief. Lady D. is an indefatigable botanist and collector she has brought home from the Cape - Ceylon - St Helena - Calcutta - Himalaya Mts [illeg.] &c such quantities of fine specimens. I often wished for you. I was interested in looking them over specifically as so many rare fine species of our own genera, but I could not [illeg.], at least to any purpose. A package of 500 specimens are in London from Ceylon - a present to Lady Dalhousie - collected & all named by a good botanist - they will be interesting. Dr Graham made a succesful time in the Clova Mountains this summer - verified some of J. Donn's doubtful observations. He will furnish you with specimens I am sure. This would be a nice botanical tour for you next summer. You must come to Scotland. Did you see anything or make anything of Ld Moseley's son? I have not seen any of the family lately, but have an invitation for a visit early next month. What beautiful specimens you make! Can you let me into any of your secrets? This is a rigmarole but I am not to let our intercourse [illeg.] any.

With our united best regards to you and Mrs H.

Believe me [illeg.] & affectionately

E. B. Ramsay