Dr. E. Purkinje 



Weiswasser, Dec. 20, 1880 



Dear Sir: 



I am happy to know that you have safely returned and am at once sending the raost 



and best of Qmorica which I have, including flowering branches which have served for 

 drawing. It is still not very much but in time I will no doubt obtain more. I received 

 the smallest branches in a bottle with glycerine and all of these retained their needles. 

 The larger branches I received packed between paper, probably k weeks after Pan6i6 

 collected them at the Bosnian border. They were still somewhat fresh but the needles 

 feil off anyway, even though I handled the branches with glycerine, which should make 

 fast the needles very much. The old cones and completely leafless branches are from the 

 first trip from a different area of South-Serbia. Besides, I fastened the branches with 

 paste for the trip so that nothing would fall off. This you can easily remove with 

 warm water if you wish. The affair does not look beautiful, but you will not soon find 

 a Picea with better attached needles, that is in herbariums. 



I would like to ask you, should you want to send me something of the treasures of 

 the Pacific, offhand do not let yourself be held up as far as Pinus and any wood is 

 concerned, because at present I am only in a hurry to finish the monograph of the 

 Qmorica and put everything eise aside. On the contrary I ask you urgently for needles 

 and a branch as well as a cone of Picea Punjens and some forms of Menziesii . From , 

 Petersburg I received some with / 7 . Irregularly slitted scales, then such with 

 almost whole scales. Unfortunatelyl/V the latter cones were so badly broken that I 

 could not use them for drawing and I ask you for individual samples of Sitchensis which 

 you mention in your letter, with whole-edged or at least with slightly undulated scales. 

 You mention Picea Engelmanni , as if it could also be confused with pungens or sitchensis . 

 I always considered a near standing pine of the P. alba , which also is designated as 

 alba in herbar ia and grows in West America, for P^ Engelmanni . Was I in error? At any 

 rate please send me a needle branch or branch and needles of the Engelmanni , if it Stands 

 near the pungens in a certain age, so that I can portray it. I do not know if not in 

 the West two or more different kinds grow, because if, as you write, Menziesii in age 

 has blunt, broad needles and this I saw on older European cultivated specimens of 

 sitchensis , yet young same-aged, which were grown in Hamburg as sitchensis| and Menziesii , 

 from American seed, show entirely different needles, even if both are very pointed like 

 pungens ( Menziesii coerulea ) from the same garden, which however again deviates. 



Have you found a similarity between cone-form ahd heedie-form with the various 

 forms of sitchensis ? In any case not all species will immediatelty be brought into the 

 clear. I am very curious about Pseudostrobus . Really I have very little of Ayacahuite 



