From Richard Spruce to J. D. Hooker   29 July 1864

My Dear Sir/

I have only the 2nd Edⁿ. of Bates,¹ in which I find no mention of the Matador, but I recollect reading a description of it in the Examiner, quoted from the 1st Edⁿ,² and it struck me that it might have been compounded from the mode of growth of some sort of fig and of Marcgraavia umbellata. Some figs have a descending axe in the form of a plate, & when it reaches the ground and takes root there it might be supposed to have grown upwards. The account I give of the Marcgraavia in my notes of travel is as follows:

“In the virgin forest one not unfrequently sees a plant curiously flattened to the trunk of a tree, and at a distance looking more as if it were painted than as if it grew thereon. It has leaves, 1 to 3 inches long, symmetrically & closely set on to the stem in two rows, oval with a rounded apex and a heart-shaped base, of a thickish substance, & of a deep velvety green color beautifully netted with the white veins. It is the young growth of Marcgraavia umbellata, and is so completely unlike the mature state that it was only by actually tracing the union of the two forms that I could satisfy myself of their identity. The stem puts forth claspers (roots) here and there, which adhere to the tree or even closely embrace it, if slender; but when it has climbed up into the light it sends out stout rounded free branches, clad with long sharp-pointed leaves of a uniform green, and the painted stem-leaves fall away. The common ivy is a familiar example of a similar mode of growth coupled with heteromorphous leaves. &c.”³

Palo matador is a mongrel term, which I have myself nowhere heard used. All thro’ Spanish America epiphytal figs & Clusiads are called Mata-palos—Kill-trees, or Tree-killers. You will have remarked that exogenous trees, fastened on by one of these parasites, generally die in his embrace; whereas palms resist their attacks, and survive the natural term of their existence:—a difference easily explained by the palm-stems being hardest at the circumference, & not increasing in thickness as ordinary trees require to do.

I hope to have the pleasure of visiting Sir W. Hooker⁴ at Kew next Tuesday. I would fain establish myself in that neighbourhood, for the sake of working up the remainder of my collections, but I have made the experiments & find I am still unable to do anything standing or sitting at a table.⁵

Have you ever had occasion to study the S. American Gossypiums? I cannot make out how G. peruvianum came to get that name, as I have nowhere seen it grown by the Indians (of Peru, or any other country of S. America), who have only varieties of G. barbadense.

Very faithfully yours | Rich^d Spruce.

Thanks for Mr. Wilson’s letter.⁶