WCP3786

[1]

Godalming, England

Sept.[embe]^r 25th 1887

My dear Prof. Ward¹

The receipt with other books &c. of your very fine & interesting "Flora of the Laramie Group" — reminds me that I must write to you, not only to thank you for it but also to let you know that I have reached home & to give you a short resumé of my tour after leaving Washington.

I staid a week at Cincinnati & saw there the spring flora pretty well developed in some of the bits of forest near the city; and also visited several of the Ohio mounds — At Sioux City, Iowa, I met Miss Bandusia Wakefield, a fine botanical artist & amateur botanist. At Lawrence, Kansas, I saw their ^{(the University's)} fine collection of Cretaceous Plants from the Sandstone nodules containing some very remarkable forms. At Manhattan, Kansas, Prof. Popenhoe² took me [on] an excursion & showed me a good deal of the interesting Prairie flora which on some of the rocky hills was very rich and peculiar, and [2] I saw more of it at Salina, Kan[sas] where I staid a week. In California (End of May) I was too late for the beautiful spring flowers, though at Yosemite & "Big Trees" I saw some of the forest flora — the coniferous forests of the Sierra being grand beyond description, — but on my return in July I staid a week on summit of Sierra Nevada & found the sub-alpine flora in perfection & very beautiful. I next staid a week in the Colorado Rockies, in the vicinity of Gray's Peak, which I ascended on foot, & here I was enchanted with the glorious alpine vegetation above the timber-line, 11,000-14,000 feet. I sent home parcels of plants every day, and am glad to find that a large portion of them have arrived safe. Should you ever go to that neighborhood let me recommend [3] you to go up a valley called "Grizzly Gulch" which is far more "flowery" than the usual trail to Gray's Peak. I left this spot with regret but I had to give a lecture at the Ag[ricultural] College of Michigan, near Lansing in the end of July. There Professors Beal³ and Bailey⁴ kindly showed me the native vegetation in some tracts of virgin forest & bog, full of Saracenias & Habenaria ciliaris & a great number of ferns, some of which I sent home. Finding the heat very great & the country too much dried up to be interesting to me, I spent a week with the Allens⁵ at Kingston, Can. & then sailed from Montreal the 10th August. During all my journeys I was very well in health except that I suffered from inflamed eyes which has become almost chronic so that I cannot work or read at [4] night. If you have made your excursion to the Yellowstones I suppose you will have returned by this time, and if you should have brought any seeds of showy flowers I should be glad of a few. There are also a few Washington plants I should like. A fine pea — was it Lathyrus venosus or Clitoria mariana you said you could send me seeds of? I should also like some roots of Viola pedata var. bicolor, Silene pennyslvanica, Orchis spectabilis, & Cypridpedium acaule. These will come well if the roots are tied up in damp moss, the leaves, if any in dry moss, & the whole packed up in a roll in oiled paper or tea-lead ^{with dry moss.} The limit of weight is now 8 3/4 oz. so boxes are too heavy — Prof. Beal has sent me some plants in oiled paper which have come well.

Hoping you are quite well, and with kind remembrances to Mrs. Ward, and to all my Washington friends, Believe me

Yours very faithfully | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]

Prof. Lester F. Ward