Ree Aug. 21 

 Ans. Nov. 2? 



Berlin- July l6, 1855 



Most honored Friend t 



Yöur kind letter of M ay 9 of this year gave nie extra - 

 ordinary joy and is the nore dear and valuable, as you really let 

 ^e have it, and presert ny weakn.esses distinctly, and, though I air 

 not able to to aeeept^ the correetness of your judjxen.ent frequently,, 

 you probably deiner ne wong in several points, and I will try to 

 d.efend nyself and justify, and, where that is not possible, to 



bring up at least points for my excuse* - First, reeeive ny best 

 thanks for the seeds, though they suff ered unf ortunately through 

 the multiple cancellation stanps to which a transatlantic letter is 

 exposed. Specif ically, the wonderful seed. of Ech.Engelnannl was nost 

 hit by this, though a few seeds have snrouted in the meantime« AI - 

 ready last year I reeeived seeds through your kindness- fron Cologne f , 

 which germinated well(with exception of £ch . latirostatus ) . ,for 

 which I Thank you also nost heartily.« 



Prof. Braun had the kindness, to pem.it ne sone insight into 

 the Plantae Lindheim and. the Memoir of Wislijtenus, a^d fron this I 

 became aquainted with your views of the position of the cotyledons 

 of different cacti. My own observations about this point are much 

 too sparse to permit nyself a jud^enent about this, but I would 

 alnost expect, that very raany exceptions to this Statement could 

 be found. Besides, I would like , if you would let ne know, by which 

 raethod you establish the position of the cotyledons in the very f ine 

 seeds of nost Mamillariae (i.e. the . . .tfcrtlllarla Engeln. ) and the 

 Melocactus. Weither the na^nifyini? *?lass nor even the nicroscope 

 give any indication in nost cases. Even 1-2 days after erernina - 

 tion one can not recognize a sign of a cotyledon with nost of these 

 younsr plant s; all is a Single, round ball. 



