408 CORRESPONDENCE. [1854, 



TO W. J. HOOKER. 



CAMBRIDGE, March 28, 1854. 



I send a glass bottle filled with the pulp and seed of 

 Cereus giganteus as gathered by the natives, and used 

 for food, the same as what I formerly sent you a small 

 quantity of in a letter, trusting the seeds would grow, 

 as they are not subjected to heat in making this jam. 



I have some pieces of the wood of the great Wel- 

 lingtonia tree, which I estimate to be not older prob- 

 ably than the Christian era. Torrey has no fruit, nor 

 have I ; but there are some cones in Philadelphia. 

 The wood is very like that of the red-wood, i. e., Tax- 

 odium sempervirens. I hope we shall get the male 

 flowers, but I have no correspondent in California, 

 and Torrey no very good or energetic ones. 



How hard it is to believe that there is a European 

 war ! I trust it will be short. Some of our own peo- 

 ple are behaving very badly about Cuba, but it is 

 mostly talk for effect, and will lead to nothing, we 

 hope. 



TO GEORGE THURBER. 



CAMBRIDGE, 20th April, 1854. 



DEAR THURBER, When yours of the 17th ar- 

 rived, and till now, I have been too much absorbed 

 in college duties to consider it, as I now rapidly will. 



Ranunculus 441. I never liked naming a plant 

 after a person who has had nothing to do with it, as 

 collector, describer, and nothing else ; therefore do 

 not like R. Huiitiana. We will wait for some other 

 mode of complimenting Mr. Hunt. Moreover, I have 

 hit on a name which pleases me tolerably, viz., R. 

 hydroeharoides, which, by your leave, we will adopt. 



Thurberia specific name ? That is a question to 



