Vienna, July 30,1869 



Honored Priend 



My heartiest congatulations as well as those of my wife to the 

 happin?.ess promisimg tum of your destiny,so totally unexpected by ne.. 

 It Is obvious, that the cacti had tojbe pushed back, and I do not -artf 

 to bother you today, the less so, becaus^C too am lacking in time,as 

 I prepare myself to depart tomorrow to the Salzburg Mountains and from 

 there to Muni cht . What I may say about cacti, leave unread,until you 

 have the leisure again, which however will certainly not be in Sep- 

 tember, Will you re^Am irj^he Invalide hone ? 



I have not see^ mich of cactl.which would be of greater interest. 

 I saw the Opuntia ^vestita* 1 ( the same^f which I saw the fruit in Antibes) 

 in flower and fruit, the first white and a most delicate violet-red. 

 What interested ne however most was Cereus virens , which I saw se- 

 veral times in flower^nd which I could examine.The flower is the more 

 stränge, as it has all the characteristics , which point to the Piloce- 

 reus flower, with the same mass of stamens.long pi stil , rolled-ln pe tal s 

 a^^ sepals,and a T "ter fading, the nectsriura hollow, closed below( but not 

 more ard hardly as mich as with Echin» acuti ssimus in Paris) etc. Besi- 

 des^iardly a sign of sepulis ovarii,^ - 5 extremely small 1 bristle-f or- 

 n^ß. sepila, which on drying cannot be found any more,and blooms nichts, 

 Vegetatively also absolutely nothing, which would identify the plant 

 as a Pilocereu s;may-be scme^hat similar to F. f ossulg tus , but with f e- 

 wer, shorter, soou disappearing hair-spir.es. Do observe Cartisii. which 

 must be very similar;! do not see it here.- 



I don f t believe, I told you, that I saw at Dr. Poselger the ori- 

 ginal of his P. celsii At first sight it does dumbfound one ; he found 

 it in the brush of P.senili (loncr a nd short-hairy forms nixed to^e- 

 ther)and thought to note a dif ference only after returning to Berlin. 

 However, it does not exist; it isjkn oppulent braj£h growth of P. senilis . 



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