Dear Sir,

It is a very great pleasure to me in any way to help in your valuable researches.

I have two small plants of Schrankia, both in the open ground— When I was at Kew last week, I offered to send them my second plant— But I have no hesitation in sending it in the first place to you, with the request that after you have quite done with it, you will return it, not to me, but to Kew— I will tell M^r. Smith that I have sent it, to explain to him why it does not come at once to Kew— When they get it I hope they will propagate it, for I think it very likely that mine are the only plants in England.²

The plant is decidedly sensitive— It was sent to me from New York about three years ago— My attention was first drawn to it in the Hortus Collinsonianus,³ as a plant grown by Collinson⁴ more than 100 years ago— As you may not have the book, the following extract may interest you—

“Arthur Dobbs Esq^e. Governor of North Carolina, in a letter to M^r. Collinson dated at Brunswick Jan 24. 1760, says—‘the most curious plants I have seen here are two of the sensitive kind; one grows two or three feet high & the stalks are all over prickly, like a brier; by striking a bush with a whip, it will instantly close up all its leaves, and bears a pretty blush red globular flower, the size of a nut—’ In 1765 M^r. Collinson received ‘a sensitive Brier’ from M^r. Bartram”—⁵

Hoping that the plant will soon recover its transplanting & interest you—I am | Yours vy faithfuly | Henry N. Ellacombe