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traveling through a large area of the Mexican territory however not large enough as I would have 

 liked, so that I could produce something more complete.To be honest I traversed Mexico in all 

 its length from Veracruz to the Rio Grande in the north. I was very much out of the way of the 

 large routes, therefore there were many localities that should have been visited but remained 

 outside of the circle of my explorations. I thought the year 1867 would provide me the 

 opportunity to see other parts of the country, principally the greenery of the Pacific, that seems 

 never to have been explored. The unhappy course that our expedition has taken and our 

 premature return to France, have placed a forced stop to my projects. I regret that I find it an 

 impossibility to do what I wanted to. My work will remain, in the meantime, very incomplete. 

 However Iconsider it a duty to science to not let it linger in my note books and to publish them 

 as they are. They will provide, in spite of there imperfections, some material that will make 

 known a vegetable family so little known until today. They will allow future botanists, who 

 luckier than I, the opportunity to complete them. In Mexico there is no lack of studious and 

 instructed men, that will demand nothing less, I am sure, than to scientifically study the 

 vegetable wealth which abounds in their country and provide science with an abundance of 

 interesting material. But how can we expect, that while studying one of the works published in 

 Europe on Cacti, that they will be able to recognize in their descriptions, the plant they have 

 under their eyes? One of the most important facts that will be of much help to recognize in this 

 chaos and which until know has been totally neglected by the botanists (I make you an honorable 

 exception), is painting at their exact locations. If one knows that at a certain location, one never 

 fmds but a very restricted number of species, it becomes much easier to to verify the Synonyms 

 and to correct the errors. Also for example in the Memoir of Poselger in 1853, that my friend 

 Buchinger sent me to Mexico, I found some species described and also their locality. This 

 informations helped me much more that the descriptions to find the species again. At La Soledad 

 (close to Veracruz), I very easily found the Pilocereus scoparius. In the Canada (between 

 Orizaba and Puebla), I again found the Mammillaria Karstinii, Further away, around San Agustin 

 de Palmas, there was the Mammillaria cirrosa (that is nothing but the M. Grisea Salm, 

 Mallitiana of the French). 



In Saltillo I again found the Mammillaria Leona similar to the Echinocactus Saltillensis; ( it is this 

 species from which I sent you seeds under the name Mammillaria obustispina). I think that this name is 

 synonymous with the Mammillaria robustispina. I believe that this name is synonymous with the 

 Mammillaria Schur iV. I did not see the flowers. Poselger says they are large and fleshy. Could they be a 

 cornifere, type of scolymoides) is found at each step in the surroundings of Sahnas and Monterrey). Its 

 piain saplings variety of your robustispina] It is probable. This Echinocactus salirensis ( variety of the 

 Mammillaria differentiate it from its less vigorous neighbor that you have described under the name of 

 mammillaria calcarata. In La Rinconada ( between Saltillo and Monterrey), I recognized in the blink of 

 an eye, the Echianoe capricornis et loptothile. I recognized your Opuntia stenopitale, without flowers, 

 bcause I was looking for it according to your directions in the south of Saltillo, ( I really found it in the 

 fields of the Battie of Buenavista, that I covered in every direction and where there are no other Opuntia 

 with flat thorns, than the Opuntia Dillenii, that is to say the Mexican form of the Opuntia Engelmanii). I 

 could teil you of many examples that demonstrate the importance of knowing the exact site, for further 

 research in the future. 



