Loyal Valley, December 20, 1882 



Dear Dr. Enge Iniann I 



I am answering your letter of Dec. 2 only today because since Sept. 26 I have 

 been bed-ridden with a broken or sprained left foot. 



Today I sent you several dried flowers of Opu ntia Davisii, as T surmise, and 

 of the shrub which here is called Mimosa Mexi.cana, and which you surmised is 

 Poinsettia pulcherrima. I do not fchink it is the latter plant; our shrub grows 

 wild on the Rio Grande, with sulphur-yellow flowers with points and crimson 

 colored but rauch shorter filarnents than the Poinsettia. I believe that this year 

 one could finally find seeds of Opuntia Davisii , because there has been plenty of 

 rain, and regret even more that I cannot go around collecting, however I will try 

 to get seeds through other people. 



As far as grape vines are concerned it is correct that in the vicinity of 

 Friedericksburg (probably everywhere in the meadow limestone formation, nowhere in 

 the granite region) the white variety of Vitis monticola , which always sends forth 

 tendrils, and likewise V. rupestris (....) which does not but grows only in bush 



form, does not at all occur infrequently. I have learned this from people 



who make wine from them. In other places the white varieties are more infrequent. 

 Up here in the granite region for instance, the white variety of Vitis candicans 

 is abimdant, but grows very seldom in the lo^er land in the chalk region. Another 

 conspicuous fact for me is that the white varieties very often have lar^er berries 

 than the usual red ones of the same kind. However I am definitely convinced that 

 there are no special kinds of wild wine-grapes in Texas that deserve beine- described 

 as Vitis Berlandieri. I had requested one of the people who each year makes wine 

 at Friedericksburg to mark white grape vines of both varieties and dig them up with 

 roots in autumn. When the nromise is kept I will send you some of both. At any 

 rate I will not let this matter get out of my mind. Furthermore this autumn it 

 has again become clear to me how uncertain the statements of the laymen are, since 

 I finally received fruits of the large-berried, reportedly entirely new dark black 



