Weber, Alb. Fred, to George Engelmann 



Ree. Feb. 19, 1877 

 Ans. Feb. 23, 1877 



Lyon, January, 30, 1877. 



My dear and very honorable colleague, 



I was very happy to reeeive your response from the 22 of January, last, in regards the 

 package of your recent publications that you were so kind to send me. 

 Without wanting to go into the past, 1 only want to reaffirm that the sentiments of 

 affection and of high esteem that I have for you have never changed for one instant. I 

 frequently have wanted to write to you. If I have not done it, you may aecuse me of 

 negligence or because of lack of time. Perhaps you are slightly at fault, because I 

 believe my last letter was left unanswered. Today I regret infinitely this interruption in 

 our correspondence. I notice that even though we have not corresponded, your last letter 

 teils me that we are engaged in the study and the research of the same subjeets. Your 

 Memoirs in regards the Agave have interested me in the highest degree. For 3 or 4 years 

 I have had the idea of revising this gender, founded on the study of its true botanical 

 characteristics. In this regards I began to analyze the flowers and to study the flowering 

 of a certain number of species ( unfortunately not numerous). Sinee 1876 I have made 

 some pretty drawings, including the interior strueture of the plants, the insertion and 

 geniculated disposition of the stamen, the changes during fecundization and the 

 succesive elongation of the Stylus, etc. If I had known about your research regarding the 

 subject I would have sent documents that may have interested you, and would have 

 answered some of the questions that you have raised among the botanists. May 

 Observation led me among others to the Agave Americana. Then to a smaller species, 

 among the group of the Paniculata, in which I studied at length the flowering at Mr. 

 Guedency's and which seem to me to be new. They are mainly the two species that 

 followed my first studies and that have created some beautiful drawings that I made for 

 Mr. Klein, with the object of elucidating the anatomy and the physiology of the Agave 

 flowers. Then I studied the flowers of the Agave filifera ( part of the geminiflora), A. 

 aylinacantha, A. jalapensis, ( unfortunately this I could not have drawn). Then the 

 flowers of the Agave Veschaffelti ( group of the A. potatorun), in whom the panicule is 

 nearly spieiform ( that is to say very short branches) and similar to the macrocantha and 

 pugioniformis Zucc. The public garden of Lyon has a beautiful collection of Agave and 

 they bloom nearly every year several times. I will study them following your work as 

 my guide. At this moment there is an Agave dealbata and dasylirioides that is ready to 

 bloom; it is a species of the group of geminiflora that distinguished itself by its stamen 

 that is hanging down,( similar to the Agave attenuata.). 



If you would like me to I will be very glad to send you with my letters some drawings 

 with explanatory notes. Only if you ask for them I will make a copy for you. 

 While I am on the chapter of the Agave I would also like to teil you a few words about a 

 new species, recently introduced in Paris, that should doubly interest you, because it 

 belongs to the flora of the Mexican Frontier ( in the surroundings of Monterey, Nuevo 

 Leon, Mexico) and because it has a terminal thorn with such an extraordinary shape. So 

 much so that I ask myself if it is really an Agave. This species that was 



