To John Phillips 20 November 1832

Dr Sir,

I have been absent from Cambridge all the summer & now send you (if not too late) all that I should wish to appear of the paper read by me to the Br. Association. I had no idea of preparing a report for publication & merely undertook such a sketch of the subject (at the request of the Committee) as presented itself to me, without any express observations undertaken for the purpose of forming a regular treatise.

Believe me

Yrs very faithfully

J. S. Henslow

Turn over

Professor Henslow read a paper "on the geographical distribution of the plants of Cambridgeshire", in which he endeavoured to show that this county might be correctly divided into three distinct Botanical districts, exclusive of a small maritime station.

These districts do not coincide with the geological divisions of the county, although their limits are defined by the mineralogical character of the subsoil: chalk, sandstone, & Clay respectively predominating in each. The plants peculiar to each district appear to be sufficiently numerous & characteristic to warrant the proposed division but observations have not hitherto been made to such an extent as to enable Professor Henslow to speak with entire confidence on the subject. To this statement in the communication was added a list of such plants as had been detected since the last Edition of the Flora Cantabrigiensis; & another of those which have apparently become extinct in the county in consequence principally of the extensive drainage of the fen districts.