Weber,AJF. 



Ree March 13. St. Louis 

 Ans. Jan 25, 1869 



Rome / Auderre 29 February 1868 



Very dear Sir and very honorable colleague, 



I have to thank you very sincerely for your kindness in excusing me for my long silence and for the 

 kindness with which you have answered the many questions from my last letter. The photograph that 

 you so kindly sent me in exchange of mine, gave me the greatest pleasure.I will be so happy to meet 

 you personally when you come to Europe next summer. If you come to France I will make it my duty 

 at the same time that I will have the pleasure, to go and visit you in Germany. The time that I will 

 spend with you will be precious under all circumstances and I will profit from this unexpected 

 occasion to submit all the documents ( quite insufficient, alas!) that I was able to collect in Mexico 

 on the Cactii.At the moment when I sent my last letter, my intentions were to prepare another study 

 which will summarize my notes on the Echinocactus and the Cerews.Unfortunately, since the 

 beginning of this year, I was forced to completely put aside all my botanical endeavors, to occupy 

 my time exclusively in the preparation of a surgical competition that will take place in the month of 

 March and which I will take part in; it won't be until after this that I will be able to occupy myself 

 again in placing in order all my notes on the Mexican cactii.I will also force myself today to make 

 some short considerations in response to different passages from your letter of last January. 

 After having read this letter, I see that what I should do when I publish some fragments that I was 

 able to collect, will be to include as little as possible, the divisions that are actually in use. I will 

 leave the genders just as they are: Mamillaria ( including the 2 large groups of Eumamillaria and 

 Coryphanta), Anhalonium ( including the Polyciphora and the Williamsii), Echinocactus 

 Cereus,Phyllocactus, Rhipsalis, Opuntia. In regards to the doubtful species, it would be best to leave 

 them provisionally with their present names and places. The Cereus pugioniferus will continue 

 carrying this name or its synonym the Cereus geometrizans. It will only constitute a particular 

 section of the Cereus with very small flowers that resemble the flowers of the Rhipsalis. The 

 Mamillaria micromeris will continue to at least, preserve its name as it will be impossible to place 

 them in one of the two sections of the gender mamillarm. You proposed to place them with the 

 gender Anhaloniun depending on if the flowers rise from the top of the mamillae. Please allow me to 

 disagree by making several objections, that do not allow me to aeeept this point of view. You have 

 aeeepted this position of the flowers as common to all the species of the Anhalonium; ifl have 

 understood correctly, in your eyes, the "supra axillary" or the apical position of the flowers of the 

 Anhalonium, constitute ones of their distinetive characteristics.This characteristic exists definitely in 

 the species described by you and is shown well in the illustrations of the Bound Commiss. Report. It 

 also is seen in the Anhalonium sulcatum, that is entirely distinetive from the Anhalonium 

 fissuratum.But it does does exist in the species or .gender of the Anhalonium prismaticum. ( I can 

 show you some very pretty live samples), nor in the Anhalonium elongatum nor in the policyphora. 

 In these 3 speices, of which I have dissected more than one plant, the wooly growth from whose 

 center grow the flowers,are axillary, that is to say, they come out of the body of the plant itself 

 between the tubercles.Furthermore in the Mamillaria micromeris the flower does not arise from the 

 middle of the wooly brush, like in the Anhalonium, but immediately above. The flower of the 

 Micromeris come out of the oculipherous areola above thebundles of für and needles; whereas in the 

 Anhalonium, where the oculipherous areola is frequently very well demarcated, mostly in the young 

 plants, this areola is entirely independent from the point of emergence of the flower. The shape of 



