WCP444

[1]

Sioux City,

May 4th, 1887

My dear Annie

I write a few lines now because I shall me [be] moving about for the next week away & may not have time. I give my third lecture here tonight and am going to give two in Kansas, but not having one in California. I do not think I ought to go on as besides the journey there, it will be impossible to come back without seeing the Yosemite valley which will itself cost nearly as much again. I have had a pleasant time here & have been taken out some nice excursions into this very curious & interesting country. I have got some flowers which I am sending off today to Miss Jekyll, so after a few days you can call & see them. There are three sp[ecies] of violets, one very like Viola pedata but I think another sp[ecies] called Viola delphinifolia grown in open places in rich soil. Also some plants of Aquilegia canadensis, & a nice Anemone like our Anemone pulsatilla, and a beautiful [2] yellow flowered Uvularia. There are no ferns the country being dry & little shade. I hope to get many more fine plants in Kansas.

It will depend upon what letters I get there whether I go to California or only go to the Rocky M[ountai]^ns but there seems little hope of lectures in California. If I have another agent & go another year I should probably get some. As John lives at a town in a flat cultivated country I could not stay there more than a few days as I should want to be in the mountains.

I enclose a list of the plants now sent to care of Miss Jekyll, which you can send or take so in a few days after you receive this. The trunk I bought in London & which was promised to be strong enough to go round the world is giving way at the ends already. The English makers do not know how to make trunks.

[3] I enclose a newspaper report of my first lecture here, & a picture for Willie..

I will write again from Kansas giving my future movements.

In haste| Your affectionate Husband | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]