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Locust Street 3003, St. Louis, Missouri* April 3, 1R70 



My honorem Friend 



Now we have arrived hone since November, but the furnishing 

 and. raoving into a. larare, new hone, and, at the sane tine, the taking 

 up again of my practice, left rae little tine for botanical studies. 

 Much became pressing and had to be dealt with. To this belong the 

 shipment of cacti fron the rieh Gulf of California. I se^tf k kinds 

 of seeds to Pfarrsdorff with the request to provide you with a sam- 

 pling for your collection as well as this leaf, which serves as ope- 

 rier for our c orr e spond enc e , and about which I hope for a reply soon. 

 Are you, young ', hüsband, still at the Hotel des Invalides ? And how 

 does the Status of husband a^ree with the cacti ? You. will e^joy 

 the nretty seeds of the stränge Cereus P ecten. a bori^inorun , of which 

 up to now orly the orange f l arge fruit is known; fully cpvered with 

 flexible spines, which. are used by the indians as hairbrush. Did 

 I send you earlier the seeds of Pilocereus ni^er = P. chrysonellus ?' 

 f rora Kew ? These are just as large, but your serpentinus (is the 

 designatiou correct ?) remains by far the langest. 



29 Speeles fron the California peninsula, but only one with 



(bad ) seeds, a na.P^if icent Mamlllarla , which I call longahan^ta , cu* ^ 

 



but which has seeds = pusilla . Should I send you also spine-bundles 

 and. such ? 



I have still all kind s of dead seeds, which I will se^>d you 

 later, as you q^e interested in this, e.P". fron Venezuela. 



T ^e Pilocereus Probien raises ever nore dif f iculties , as p*e- 

 nerally the systenatic cacti is gettlng ever nore confused 



rather than clearer, P. Schotti i , which grows also in Lower Califor- 

 nia, should aecording to growth be a genuine Pilocereus , the f lower 

 however has nothing in connon; and its olive-like, naked fruit s; 

 it is called Carambuye in Lower Californias . " the sane nane is 

 given there to a true Cereus with strong, evenly fomed spines but 



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