From:
Richard Spruce
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[1876–7]
Source of text:
DAR 109: B119
Summary:
Notes on various instances of dimorphic stamens.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Richard Spruce
To:
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Date:
29 July 1864
Source of text:
DAR 157.2: 111
Summary:
Gives an extract from his notes on Marcgravia umbellata, an epiphyte that might be the plant that Bates refers to as matador.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Richard Spruce
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[before 1 Apr 1869]
Source of text:
DAR 177: 241
Summary:
Sends CD a paper ["Ant-agency in plant structure", published in Spruce Notes of a botanist on the Amazon and Andes, ed. A. R. Wallace (1908)] on plant structures he believes are the work of insects; asks him to forward it to the Linnean Society [read 15 Apr 1869].
Writes of his support for the Origin, before which he had been much concerned by the delimitation of so-called species.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Richard Spruce
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
15 Apr 1869
Source of text:
DAR 177: 242
Summary:
Describes the floral structure and fertilisation of some melastomes;
discusses the direct agency of insects in modifying the structure of flowers.
Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Richard Spruce
To:
Alfred Russel Wallace
Date:
25 September 1873
Source of text:
- Natural History Museum, London: NHM WP1/3/111
- Natural History Museum, London: NHM WP1/3/111
- Natural History Museum, London: NHM WP1/3/111
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Richard Spruce
To:
Frances ("Fanny") Sims (née Wallace)
Date:
27 February 1867
Source of text:
Natural History Museum, London: NHM WP1/3/57
Summary:
The return of some of his diplomas found by her; ARW's stereoscope; spiritualism; health.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Richard Spruce
To:
Alfred Russel Wallace
Date:
28 December 1873
Source of text:
British Library, The: BL Add. 46435 ff. 270-271
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Richard Spruce
To:
Alfred Russel Wallace
Date:
28 July 1876
Source of text:
British Library, The: BL Add. 46435 ff. 340-342
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Richard Spruce
To:
Alfred Russel Wallace
Date:
24 February 1879
Source of text:
British Library, The: BL Add. 46436 ff. 13-15
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Richard Spruce
To:
Alfred Russel Wallace
Date:
10 October 1852
Source of text:
Natural History Museum, London: NHM WP1/3/25
Summary:
Describes chaotic political situation in Barra; “the President went away & left no one in charge of the state.” Officials have sucked all the money in the Treasury. Worst season of year; no collecting; living on very meager food. Will stay 12 or 15 months although it’s very difficult and is unhappy “buried in forest.” Disturbed by unsettling news of problems in England received via London papers; voyage by river from San Gabriel to San Jeronimo; collecting specimens of ferns; plans to travel with Agostinho; problems with lazy, incompetent Indian servants; wants news of whether Sir Robt Humbugck [sic: Schomburgk] has published on vegetation of Rio Negro.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Richard Spruce
To:
Alfred Russel Wallace
Date:
2 July 1853
Source of text:
Natural History Museum, London: NHM WP1/3/26
Summary:
Became worried when hadn’t heard from you (ARW); wondered what “catastrophe” found you, “whether you were shipwrecked, or got married” or overdosed “on plum pudding.” Finally learned of the fire that took your ship and collections; sympathize with your “sufferings and irreparable losses” and admire your stoicism. “I [too] have] looked death in the face.” Local Indians became drunk at a public feast and “threatened to murder all the whites” (all three of us). We were obliged to keep “constant [armed] watch for two days and nights.” Had they attacked, they could have easily killed us “for they were 150 against 3.” Local scoundrel named Chagas, “with a face exactly like the back of a Surinam toad” (ie. hideously pock-marked), has been helpful in arranging river expeditions for plant collecting, but “also took a special delight in cheating me.” Currently we’re preparing for a voyage up the Casiquiare, with the intention of entering the Rio Cunucunuma; next year we’ll explore the sources of the Orinoco.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Richard Spruce
To:
Alfred Russel Wallace
Date:
21 November 1863
Source of text:
Natural History Museum, London: NHM WP1/3/55
Summary:
Journey from Guayaquil, heart-attack, paralysis, general ill-health and poverty, inability to collect insects for ARW; botany, illness preventing his work on collection of mosses; bitterness at treatment by Sir William Hooker; newspaper reports on Darwin's Origin of Species, geographical distribution of species; ARW's Malayan collections; collectors in the Andes; tameness of native birds; marriage; possibility of returning to England.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Richard Spruce
To:
Alfred Russel Wallace
Date:
3 January 1866
Source of text:
Natural History Museum, London: NHM WP1/3/56
Summary:
ARW's new stereoscope; Latham's failure to publish Spruce's vocabularies, Latham's bankruptcy; return of the MS to Spruce; New Year greetings to ARW and his "charmante épouse".
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Richard Spruce
To:
Alfred Russel Wallace
Date:
26 April 1867
Source of text:
Natural History Museum, London: NHM WP1/3/58
Summary:
Spiritualism; ARW's memoir on Malay migration; inherited deafness in cats; Paris Exposition.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Richard Spruce
To:
William Jackson Hooker
Date:
3 August 1849
Source of text:
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: DC 28 English Letters K-Z (1849) f.259
Summary:
“We now have now several hundred [plant] specimens dried and drying”; sowed seeds of palms and fruit trees; have flowers including orchids. In September hope to send my collections to England and then go upriver, will explore Montalegre [sic] and north shores of Amazon. Ferns abundant here, especially Hepaticae. Enclose a note for Mr. Smith about his plants from Kew. Bringing assistant from London was a mistake, as he is drained of energy in this hot climate; cannot keep up with blacks, who are also “expert at climbing trees” with a rope and work for half the pay. Has seen ARW, who has “quarreled [sic] & separated long ago from Bates, who is now at mouth of the Tocantins. ARW has gone to Monte Alegre.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Richard Spruce
To:
William Jackson Hooker
Date:
1? January 1861
Source of text:
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: DC65 folio 359
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Richard Spruce
To:
William Jackson Hooker
Date:
5 January 1855
Source of text:
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew: DC71 folio 372
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Richard Spruce
To:
Daniel Hanbury
Date:
24 January 1866
Source of text:
Royal Pharmaceutical Society
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Richard Spruce
To:
Daniel Hanbury
Date:
7 May 1867
Source of text:
Royal Pharmaceutical Society
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project
Text Online
From:
Richard Spruce
To:
Daniel Hanbury
Date:
25 September 1865
Source of text:
Royal Pharmaceutical Society
Summary:
No summary available.
Contributor:
Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project