7 



and comparison. As these too are mostly uni ca , I would have to ask 

 you to return them som.etine after havinrr nade use of them... I await 

 your answer about this. 



I an most obliged to you for your off er to send to me some seeds 

 and to be Willing to glve ne later some seed-plants , and. would ask you 

 most obe^iently to let me have those seeds' quite soon as just now is 

 the latest time for sowing and the seeds will hardly be able to ger - 

 m i na t e ne xt Summer . 



Prom your remarks I deduct, that you plan to undertake a very/ 

 substantial reduction in the species of cacti • I too had this plan, 

 when I re turne d from Mexico, but proceeded later only in a minor way 

 and with little success f and, today, I am quite Willing, , to describe 

 a plant, which I consider as a beautiful and unique variety of an 

 other, as a new species. The reasor^f or this is, that our times are 

 not yet readyvto undertake a slgnificant reduction of species in ge- 

 nerali and that it would be at the very last the cacti, with whichr a 

 beginning should be raade» . Because the cacti are unf ortunately the 

 Parias of the plant f amiliest No professional botanist will deal with 

 them, and their" exact scientific study and the general, knowledge irr 

 depth of this family rests alone in the hands of anateurs. If how- 

 ever the professional botanists are thoroughly opposed to a signifi- 

 cant reduction 1 of species, then the amateurs are even more so, and 

 only mighty few of the latter would wish to possess a collect! on of 

 really many varieties,but want to show off as many species as pos- 

 sible.- 



Of all, who have worked on this family, it is certainly Dr. 

 Engelmanrr who deserves the most credit^, though he feil into some 

 stränge er^ors, and that, because he published his fjncxfc classlcal 

 opus about cacti prior to his first trip to Europe and knew only 

 extremely few Eumammilariae from his own viewing and had never seen 



