Dr. E. Purkinje 



Weisswasser, June 25, 1880 



Dear Sir: 



I thank you very much for sending me the pine needles, which I have not yet prepared 

 because I did not have the time, but I will get at them one of these days. If you can 

 make a trip to Kamchatka. Not long ago I received from Mertens in Kamchatka collected 

 needles as silvestris ; it was an individual but only closer related with contorta variety. 

 Unexpectedly I met with a great pleasure. Just after receipt of your letter I decided 

 to write to Panui (or Panvu) in Belgrade and asked hira for a specimen from America 

 (for you) because the material previously sent to me is rather unpresentable ( a branch 

 with many cones which it is difficult to divide, all needles fallen off-) when by itself 

 a letter arrived from Panui,? wherein he notified me of a shipment of Qmorica which he 

 recently collected in southwest Serbia, with male, female flowers and cones. In the 

 next few days I will send you several good branches, as soon as I have completed the 

 examination and drawing of the flowers for a treatise on which I am working with Panui;? 

 with such occasions one cannot let anything get out of hand until one has examined every- 

 thing carefully. It is questionable now if not perhaps the old pungens has similarity 



Needles broad, flat, rounded off at the tip but with a thorn- 

 below grass-green, above white; cones similar to P. alba 



or orientalis , ^ but strong stem. Male flower catkins at the tip but also on 



the base P/ M / / of the branch. However, I think since you attribute to pungens 



undulated / cone scales, that is similar to Alcoquiana, and sitchensis , that 



the Omorica 3^!ftdt ic^entical, I would like to have a cone of pungens to portray for the 

 illustration / in the treatise, where I also have given the pictures of all 



regarded ^/If^^^^ related, orientalis (which only has similarity in cones) sitchensis 



KNt Alcoc l uiana « ajanensis , but through you it is not possible now, perhaps 

 Booth in W Hamburg will help me. The Pinus monophylla of which I wrote that they 

 remained V in good condition, have since then faded and only Pinus Geffreys and 

 contorta , and the latter only partly, have only partly remained in good condition. 

 Taxodium distichum did not suffer but sempervirens is gone. The latter was undamaged for 

 12 years. Cunninghamia , Wellingtonia , Cedrus , Cryptomeria had remained in good condition 

 so many years, but this last winter was so extremely cold and indeed the coldness lasted 

 unusually long, frosts occurced already in the first half of October, which again came in 

 November and December was bitter ly cold throughout, January no less and indeed there was 

 a cool summer before. Some things were frozen of which one would not want to believe it f 

 Sedum palustre , Cotoneaster vulgaris at one location, where it was somewhat shaded and 

 had grown profusely, Sanothamnus scoparius everywhere in the forests. After warm April 

 came May frost, which killed many things which had halfway survived the winter, but had 



