Letter from M. S. Griswold to John Muir, [ca. 1900].

[letterhead]#2.I had been out, I think on a Saturday, on a Botanical ramble around M[uil?] Lake, gathering some new specimens of plants for my herbarium. The next morning I r[ested?] myself on the steps of our Dormitory to analyze them and put them into the Press, and while so engaged you came along and looked on with considerable interest, and finally said you didn\u27t see how I so readily [illegible] the species and names of the plants I had. I picked up a new specimen and said, \u27sit down a few minutes, Muir, and I will take this plant and explain it to you.\u27 Then I began, calling attention to the leading features of the plant and flower, and referring to the tables and gradually tracing the plant from one subdivision to another until I had fixed the Order, and then turning to the Order from the table there [illegible] getting the genus and species. When I had thus traced the plant to its name, you exclaimed,\u27That\u27s wonderful, perfectly wonderful, Griswold; I must get me a Botany right off!\u27 And you did get one, almost immediately, and after that we had many a cheery Botanical ramble together often tramping about the wooded shores of the Lakes.02819https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmcl/40364/thumbnail.jp