Weber, A. F. 



Ree. Viena July 28 Ans. Viena July 30 



Paris, July 21, 1869 



My very dear and very honored colleague, 



Yesterday I reeeived your letter from Viena. Five or six weeks ago I also reeeived 

 your letter dated in Berlin. I hope you will pardon me if I did not answer the last one 

 immediately but you will excuse me when I inform you of the reason for my negligence. It 

 is because I am at this moment to be married and as you can imagine it is this important 

 occupation which makes me negligent of the other. My wedding will take place the 9th. of 

 August of this year, therefore I will not be able to Start my usual occupations until the 

 month of September. My future wife is nearly German. She was born in France but spent 

 all of her childhood in Mannheim. Her father was there for fiteen years where he had a 

 printing business. She has lived in Paris only 6 or 7 years. 



In spite of all the occupations that I have had in preparation for my marriage, I have 

 been able to occupy myself to a small degree in the study of the Cactus. 



In May I traveled to Strasbourg and I brought back the rarest and most unusual 

 speeimens that I placed at Mr. Pfersedorff s. I also went back several time to Mr. 

 Guedeney's where I observed a great number of flowers. The pretty examples of 

 Leuchtenbergia, at this moment have buds arising on the top of naissant tubercles. The 

 bud is still very small, is rose in color and forms numerous interwoven scales. Mr. 

 Guedeney promised to inform me when they are about to bloom. I will then describe the 

 flower with great caution and will have it drawn. I am sorry I was not in Paris when it 

 bloomed; he preserved the dried flowers for me. I noticed that he had a large number of 

 species but principally the Echinocereus. I began making an herbarium of flowers from 

 the CactL Before pressing the flowers I cut them in half and in this way they can be 

 preserved very well and keep their natural colors. 



I observed the flowers of a number of Echinocactus from Central America which 

 confirmed the observations that I made about 18 months ago in regards the inflorescence 

 of this type and on the errors that one could make by stating that the vertical inflorescence 

 is indisputable. 



You may remeber when I talked to you about the mexican Cereus with apical 

 infloresence. You responded that the vertical infloresence is analogous to the 

 Echinocactus. It was then that I paid more attention to the infloresence of the 

 Echinocactus and I noticed that the flowers do not always arise from the last bare areolas 

 not even from incompletely developed ones. You will remember an Echinocactus 

 castaneoides that I showed you at Mr. Guedeney's whose flowers came out of perfectly developed 



