2 



great similarlty, 



Another, lo^sr known peculiarit^s the varying by seeding of many 

 cacti species, specially the Eunammilariae but also cefctain Echinocacti 

 (fe.g. StenogoniJ» This tendency of change is specially prevalent with 

 seeds raised, in Europe, less so with original seeds» Such changes are 

 usually attributed. to clone f ormations (this is a guess on my part . . The 

 German f, Bestandbxldung ,, i s not known to me S. D. ) , which, howetzer, in ny 

 opinion habe taken place very rarely. Ur.f ortunately it is quite commoir,, 

 that such seed-variability is being designated as new snecies. 



I, further, arree with you conpletely, that it is quite dlfficult* 

 to deternine the identity o^an original plant with one raised in Europe. 

 B<ecause t^ose colossal spin.es, which contribute to the oustanding beauty 

 of the original plants, suffer often in Europe in a miserable way.where- 

 as the body of the plantet ncreases frequently with us substantially» »This 

 leads to an unsolved questiom Which organs of other plant s are being re- 

 presented by the spines of the cacti ?#Were you able to conduet studies 

 in this important point,and what results did you come to ? 



Only one of your remarks caused nie to be sonewhat astoni shed, . be - 

 cause I can not explain it prope^ly. You.Lay, that the flowers of most 

 large Cerei are terminal (verbatim: "on the suraniit H E.D. ),as with the 

 Echinocactus . I can only understand this like this, that the flowers 

 develop fron the youn<rest areoles, similar as with Echinocactus . This 

 case I have never observed, nei ther in Mexico nor in Europa, nor do I 

 know any Ce^eus or Pilocereus , which flowers te^nirally.In contra st I 

 find, thatjfwlth some Cerei , specially Pilocereus , the flowers develop 

 more toward the end of the colunns: thus with P . leuc oeephalus ; P . Gro- 

 parlus ;P. senilis . According to your description the following Cerei 

 seem to belong to those, whicfc|flower terrainallyi P. Koppen st edte ; 

 C. Tetezo ; C. Teonostle ; C. Wollianus and C, Chiotilla. . These are bey- 

 ond any dount all entirely new, but cannot form the majority (as you say) 

 of th e Cerei .- 



