A. Weber 



Engelmann Papers 



Sent Bremen Oct. 7, 1869 

 Ree. St. Louis April 3 1870 



Paris 4 Octobre 1869 



My very dear and honorable colleague, 



You will please pardon that I have not conquered my letter writing negligence 

 during last month, because of unusual events that have occurred in my occupation. When 

 you will have returned to your home and I will have come back to my normal life I will try 

 to recover the lost time. 



I reeeived your letter of the month of August and the one of September. This last 

 one I reeeived on returning from a short absence. I want to write you in a hurry prior to 

 your embarcation, some words of farewell and my excuses. 



I have successfully reeeived your seeds of the Agave virginianae that sprouted in 

 different areas, at Pfersedorffs, at Guedeney's and in the green house of the Hotel des 

 Invalides. Later the seeds of Chili arrived for Mr. Seitz and which will be seeded next year 

 followed by the seeds that you have brought back from England that are very similar to the 

 Pilocereus niger and that have interested me. I would only like to ask you if these seeds 

 are fresh, that is to say if they were taken from a living plant or from a crushed one. If it 

 were the first case I will try to make them grow. 



Your observations on the Pilocereus senilis also interested me vividly therefore we 

 can admit as something that occurs constantly that the Pilocereus senilis is part of a group 

 that is characterized by a terminal cephalium and because of this it is essentially different 

 than the Pilocereus lateralis. This is what I always thought. In Zapotitlan I saw 2 species 

 of cephalium, that is to say the terminal cephalium and the lateral one, both well 

 differentiated. 



I saw a large number of Pilocereus lateralis in which the Cephalium forms a lateral 

 row on the upper part of the stalk. In the same place I saw several speeimens of the 

 species that I could not classify. These were confused by the natives with the Tetezco that 

 had a terminal cephalium resembling the one seen on the Melocactus. The speeimens that I 

 saw had a cephalium greater than 1 meter in height and fully surrounded the 

 circumference of the stalk; unfortunately it did not have flowers or fruits. The native that 

 aecompanied me thought that the Cereus tetezco (that grows in large masses and whose 

 flowers grow at the very top of the stem, in boughs) forms a cephalium that is not 

 ramified. These long stemmed plants with their cephalium are identical with the Cereus 





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