Weber A.F. Lyon March 29, 1877 



From translator M.T. : the next portion of the letter is dated Jan. . 30, 1 877. 



I have to thank you in my name and that of my friend Mr. Martel, for the promise you 

 wished to make us, to send fresh or old seeds, to test Mr. Martel's talents. You asked if 

 there were special procedures to germinate old cells. No, there is no special chemical 

 procedure. He used the calcareous content of the earth. His great secret consists in 

 planting the seedlings with great care at all times and to, so called, smolder them in the 

 ground. We must add to this that his material installations are perfect. He obtained results 

 that left me incredulous after having seen them with my own eyes. He will place his true 

 seif esteem to work with anything that you would make available to him, be it Cacti, 

 Agaves or Yuccas. 



I wrote you already that he germinated old seeds of Anhalohum whose young plants 

 prosper beautifully. He also saved and took when born a small curious species of 

 Mammillaria that I brought from the shores of the Rio Grande del Norte. That seems to be 

 the most southern form of the mammillaria vivipara. At first is appears to be very 

 different from the last species. For a long time I was doubting the identity of this small 

 plant that I named Mammillaria chlorostigma because of its vertical Stigma. Pfersdorff 

 was unable to make it grow and the species would have been lost had Mr. Martel not 

 made it grow from old seeds. These seeds have the same characteristics as those of the 

 Mammillaria vivipara and the young plants Coming from the seedlings resemble, if I am 

 not mistaken the young vivipara that I seeded at the same time. If you wish I will send you 

 a note of this small, alluring and unusual plant, that today is related without doubt to the 

 vivipara type. However it demonstrates how much this type can vary as without the 

 similarity of the seeds I would never have thought to relate the Mammillaria Chlorostigma 

 with the vivipara. 



I would be very happy if you would execute the intention that you manifested to send me 

 in the spring a sample of your Mammillaria Agassizi. You can be sure that if the plant 

 arrives alive it will definitely be saved and probably will have multiplied before the end of 

 the year. 



In last year's letter you to talked to me about an Opuntia that Agassiz had sent you from 

 the Galapagos and that you thought was the same as that we saw together at the Garden of 

 Plants of Paris. Perhaps you don't know that this species was brought by Darwin more or 



