Engelmann, George Jan. 21, 1842 [2] (seq. 34)

in regard to exchange, several parcels, which he sent
me have been lost, and not one arrived!

I am much obliged to you for the trouble you
take with my manuscript etc. July will do.
It gives me time to compare more specimens.
Who is the person whom I have to address in
Philadelphia, if I should like to compare
the Cuscutas of the collection of the Academy
now, when {Thomas} Nuttall has left? I am afraid
though, it would be too much asked.
But could you get some information from
London before the end of April? —
You are very kind in offering to undertake
the undoubtedly very necessary duty
of englishizizing my English. Would it
not be better to have the diagnosis [to?] —
latin; my manuscript is so but I trans-
lated it under the expectation, impression that
English terms were more customary here.

— I would not advise you to send only
specimens of Myosotis etc in newspapers
but if you have any thing which may
be lost without too great a loss, just try
it; if it is found out in our post office
I have to pay only letter postage 25 c.
thats all! —

Some Cuscutas are certainly very much
alike, and I am undecided wether my
{Cuscuta} saururi and {Cuscuta} carinata are really different,
and wether {Cuscuta} cephalanthi does not also
belong have; this last question I will and
can decide with certainly next season, the
first is more difficult; but all the others
appear to me very distinct. I think I said
it in the introduction that most species are
occasionally 4 — or 5 — merous, and I never
make this a distinction. All or nearly all the

flowers of Cuscuta carinata, which I have examined, are
5 parted; only one specimen from Connecticut is
tetramerous — but I would not separate if from
the others; but {Cuscuta} cephalanthi, {Cuscuta} coryli, and {Cuscuta}
polygonorum are generally tetra merous — all
so far as I know only western plants, which
I have found with in your Mr Carey's or
Prof Shorts collection —

I send you inclosed a little paper with the seeds
of 3 Nasturtiums. You will find that which I
called tanacetifolium different from palustre —
{Nasturtium palustre} is common here, petals large, seeds large
etc {Nasturtium} — ? grows so far as I know only
in mud on the banks of the Mississippi at low
water, is always smell, of if large, always
very ramose, and spreading never more
than 4 or 5 inches high, the long fruit —
racemes laying procumbent on the mud never erect
the {Nasturtium palustre} grows sometines with it, but
is always easily distinguished. It might
be called {Nasturtium} ramosissimum, but I suppose
it must be either Nuttall's limosum or
obtusum, probably this. Nuttalls
diagnosis are not always satisfactory;
the names are both appropriate.

You say the Marsilea (Nuttall, Arkansas)
has no fruit — how is Douglas's from Texas,
— in the same condition?

If that Eupatoria of which you got
hereby a specimen is different from resinosus?
it is not described in your Flora. You must
have seen it in Berlin, I should think.

I wish you were satisfactorily through
with Compositae, but I hope your