St. Löuis, Mo. May 21,1882 



My most honored Friend 



Today I recelved your letter of May 2, you will have 

 found out long arro , that the Qpuntia. is clavata « I enelose seeds and 

 a spine-bundle of the fruit of the St. Louis "Pitaya". I have your 

 Cereus Quere tarensi s , and find the seeds and specially the spines 

 and spxne-bundles somewhat different. However, they belong probably 

 together. Growth of Parry* s plants much branched, 20 - 25 feet high, 

 blanche s stronprlv upright. 



Now more ab out Agavae « I recelved fron West Texas raountains, 

 which border on New Mexico a^ entire fruit ins- stein of senile and 

 leaves which surprised me highly. Even flowers were there, and, af- 

 ter exact examination I found, that they belonrr all to a speoies of 



tha (Leohu.^uilla,Poselresi) ,but differ fron this by 

 the strength of the stem or shaft; shafts to up to 10 feet high and 

 lf- inches thick; or o*ily k feet and \ inch t Leaves lj - 3 n wide. 

 But the nost beautiful is the inf loresce>"\se; while nornally flowers 

 emerge in pairs, in Single specimens they cone in 3 and 4.- That I 

 had seen already, and did not astound me; - but from the richest - 

 f lo^erinpc r luxuriant specimens arose a lot of small side-branches, 

 about 3/4 11 long when developed, which carried 5-8-10 flowers. The 

 branch sten was snooth as with A. paniculatlQfr ; the entire, dense 

 fruiting body had a diameter of over 3 *• The entire story reminded 

 me of your A. Verschaff eltll , as you describe it. I think I will send 

 you f or the best a side-bra^.ch ; , so that you your seif raay be astoun- 

 ded. My oorrespondent declared it also as an Arrave na^i oulata I 

 But oa^.e to the conclusion throurrh hi s o-^ c onpari son of many sne- 

 cimens, that the plant was >^ot dlfferent from the two-flowered form; 

 and that is the way it is. 





ü=Li ^ LJ ^ 





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