He placed this collection in the British Museum, and was led to expect that a first-rate botanist would have examined and described it; but he has been disappointed." A reference to Robert Brown's dilatoriness over King's collection occurs in the "Life and Letters," I., page 274, note.), and made him very indignant, but it seems a much harder one would not have been wasted.

My cryptogamic collection was sent to Berkeley; it was not large.

I do not believe he has yet published an account, but he wrote to me some year ago that he had described [the specimens] and mislaid all his descriptions.

Would it not be well for you to put yourself in communication with him, as otherwise something will perhaps be twice laboured over?
My best (though poor) collection of the cryptogams was from the Chonos Islands.
Would you kindly observe one little fact for me, whether any species of plant, peculiar to any island, as Galapagos, St.Helena, or New Zealand, where there are no large quadrupeds, have hooked seeds--such hooks as, if observed here, would be thought with justness to be adapted to catch into wool of animals.
Would you further oblige me some time by informing me (though I forget this will certainly appear in your "Antarctic Flora") whether in islands like St.Helena, Galapagos, and New Zealand, the number of families and genera are large compared with the number of species, as happens in coral islands, and as, I believe, in the extreme Arctic land.

Certainly this is the case with marine shells in extreme Arctic seas.