Letter from Dr. Geo. Engelmann to Dr. C. C. Parry. 271 



A LETTER FROM DR. GEO. ENGELMANN TO DR. C. C. PARRY, 



St. Louis, Mo., Jan. 10, 1883. 



Dear Parry: If you really leave the 15th these lines will 

 scarcely reach you, but they will greet you on the return from a 

 glorious trip. Thanks for the Cactus seed and Rose. 



You complain of my not writing — I think I have been doing 

 nothing in all December but writing to you ; at all events I wrote 

 on the 27th which you ought to have had when you wrote last. 

 My letter of the 19th has been already answered — I got yours on 

 the 5th. You see that the Rose has made sensation in Rose circles 

 and will, no doubt, be highly prized by cultivators, but whether you 

 will be able to get it to Europe alive ? 



I have been overhauling Plantago lately. You sent me Plan- 

 tago Bigelovii from near San Diego some time ago. The small 

 slender thing is correct, but there was another bigger woolly headed 

 thing mixed with it, which is nothing but P. Patagonica, a dwarf 

 form. 



When will I publish Cereus ? Perhaps in the next world — for I 

 see no possibility to get at it soon, and my time here may soon be 

 out! What a mess of unfinished business will I leave behind. 



Remember me to Cleveland. I suppose he has got my Boundary 

 Cactaceae now. 



So you will take the ladies along ! Remember me kindly to both 

 of them ; I will be with you in spirit ! I have only a few days ago 

 handled Euphorbia misera which Miss Smith helped me gather on 

 Point Loma two years ago. My herbarium is not only a source of 

 scientific delight, but the best journal I could have; every specimen 

 brings scenery and surroundings up like a magic lantern. There are 

 the bushes of E. misera, and there the curious sea formations, and 

 there Miss Smith and her father, and up and far west of us the light- 

 house — and then the lunch — Oh, it was nice! But the big stick of 

 Opuntia prolifera I could not master with my knife — could you with 

 an ax get one! Between old and new San Diego I believe I have 

 seen them four or five inches thick. 



And now good luck for your trip. Will you also settle Agave 

 Pringlei. Yours ever, G. Engelmann. 



[The above letter will be read with interest by many botanists, 

 and is reproduced by permission from the correspondence of the late 

 Dr. Parry. The rose referred to is Rose minutifolia, a remarkable 

 new species discovered by Dr. Parry and others in Lower California 

 in 1882. The charming reference to the pleasures derived from the 

 possession of an herbarium will be appreciated by every collector. — 

 Editor.] 



