-2- 



f, The beautiful purple flowers are 2 1/2 - 3 inches in diameterV That is correct 

 also for my specimens; but with 0. Wrightii you say "flowers abt. 1 or 1 l/k inches 



diarn." and the Opuntia of which I sent the thinner stem nodes and now the very small 



root-stems, just as 0. arborescens has flowers of 2 1/2 - 3 inches diameter, which 



are only somewhat less dark violet than those of 0. arborescens ; one could call them 



lilac of pale lilac. I will in tirae send you dried flowers of both.O. arborescens 



endures the winters here very well, 0. Wrightii , or whatever it is, often suffers 



through frost. 



Of # frutescens now 0. Leptocaulis , to which you also call attention in your 

 letter of July 2 ; 4, l8?8 and of Feb. 3, 1880. I also placed in the cardboard box 

 for you today 2 varieties with good roots; var. bocoispina and var, longispi na , 

 which all strikingly occur here in masses alongside of each other. Flower sulphur- 

 yellow, füll, This cylinder opuntia has a striking fruit in color and form, just 

 like most of the other cactus here. I enclosed a number of branches dense with 

 fruit. It strikes me however that all fruits are only on the var. longi spina . 

 Moreover I surmise that a number of varieties exist, bec^use in riding by higher 

 up I saw such pipe-stem cactus with much larger, thicker and broader fruits, which 

 also were colored more yellow, or at most yellow-red than bright red. 



In my last letter I enclosed some seeds of the Mimosa Mexicana , socalled in 

 Dr. Lipscombs Nursery Gatalogue. These seeds are in pods, which burst open noisily 

 as soon as they are ripe. They say that it supposedly is Poinciana palcherrima 

 from India. It is however an indigenous Texas and Mexican plant, which occurs all 

 over on the Rio Grande, and could not possibly have escaped the attention of the 

 botanists in Emory's B.S. It must be described in Torrey's botany of Mex. B.S. 1859. 

 Unfortunately I could never obtain the latest work. 



Here I have Ghileopsis linearis in tree form from 12 - 16 feet high, up to 1^ - 16 



inches stem-circumf erence - Tecoma stans, the ^old-yello^ blooming shrub from New 



Mexico, Mexico and Texas, is also grown here as a i^corative r>lant, however it often 

 freezes in Winter and comes up again every year r rom the roots. The last time I 



Iii Im 





J ^ 



m 



1 



cm 



2 3 4 5 



6 7 8 9 10 

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Missouri 

 Botanical 

 Garden 



