- ^ D:r * E. Purkynje May 27 f ,l8?8 



In the meantirae I had to contact the Providers, in o^rler to ob- 

 tain specime^.s for the herbarium of certain stränge items, and of 

 the diverse forms of oaks, firs and spruce wood sections with 

 bark. The wo^e one looks around, the more f undaraentally diffe- 

 rent forms one find not only in Spain, Italy, Greece, Scandinavia,, 

 Sibiria but already in central Europe. Many of the correspondents r 

 pay now attention to everything^ and send also sraalll shrubs, ffenista, 

 CytisuSpRubus etc.rooted willow shoots etc. .From Tyrol I received 1 

 Va c c i ni um ul i g ono sumy wh ich differs substantially- f rom the bohemiarr.. 

 Most likely, this widely distributed species has many forns. I col- 

 lect now, death or life, as many localities as possible. Focke irr 

 Bremen, who has collected/ and cultivated Rubus for 20 years,sent me 

 20 typical forms »alive, and I augment the collection througH- dig- 

 ging in the wild. Earlie^, prior to my starting this extensive col- 

 lecting of seeds, I had another plan.namely to have all botanical 

 gardens mail grafting sprouts,and in this way to sift through the 

 nomenclature. I received over 200 species from Vienna, but only 80 

 took hold, because last year the Spring was most 1 unfavorable here,, 

 and the stock sprouted poorly. This year I shall continue this col- 

 lectiomhaving grown in the meantime many hundreds od stock, and" 

 that of different species. The fact, that all' syrian Kotschysic oaks,. 

 which I received from Sch$nbrunn-, failed;was caused: by their being- 

 ^afted on Q. pedunculatus. . I ask you, who is in contact with so many 

 american. travellers, to admonish thenr, to collect acorns, . cones , etc 

 always from one tree in such a sack and to give the locality, and not 

 of several trees and localities, as these may easily belong to en- 

 tiT-ely different forms, or to leave it doubtful', if on the same tree 

 the cones can vary or not. I did ?raft _ Q. heterophylla from Prague 

 under the name sonchif olia. I believed, that it was a form of ^ imbri- 

 caria.I will have acorns collected in the Fall from this tree, which: 



