Miscellaneous letters from and to Benjamin Smith Barton, Nicholas Collin, Henry Muhlenberg, Jeremy Belknap, Monsieur Le Roi, and a broadside by Robert Aitken. These letters concern botany and zoology in the U.S., England, and on the Continent, and mention contemporary figures as well as the American Philosophical Society.

These are mainly letters written from British botanists to James and William Sowerby concerning flowers and botany in England. Most of the correspondents are represented by only one letter and include Charles C. Babington, William H. Baxter, Joseph D. Hooker, Daniel Oliver, and W. T. Thiselton-Dyer.

These letters refer to the exchange of various plants, to botany in general, and to the operation of Kew. There is mention as well of the plants of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

A variety of topics are discussed in these letters, mainly on plant specimens and botanical subjects in relation to England, India, and other parts of the world. The most voluminous correspondence is with Henry Walter Bates, Sir Henry Cole, Sir Richard Strachey, Dawson Turner, and William Crawford Williamson.