At top of letter – specimen and note:
F cristatus var. B
Hist Fuc
From the Red Sea
Madam
I have at length through the kindness of your Chancellor of the Exchequer received the parcel that you had the goodness to give to Mr Mackay for me many months ago, & I feel myself extremely indebted to you for it. I had considered my Herbarium unrivalled in point of beauty of specimens but I must frankly own that these surpass me, nor did I ever see any so exquisitely preserved before. I shall reserve the other side of this sheet for my opinion of the Fuci & Ulva among which you will observe that there is more than one species new to Britain. To examine the Confervae properly would require more time than I am at present master of, so I shall therefore leave them to be the subject of my next letter. The adding of F cristatus to the British Catalogue particularly delighted me. This beautiful plant was unfortunately published in Historia Fucorum three months ago from imperfect specimens but with your leave I will send one of yours to Mr Sowerby to be engraved for English Botany where Dr Smith will be happy at such an accession. The morsel at the top of this letter, I thought that you would be glad to see, not only as a more beautiful variety of the plant than yours, but being in fructification, nor has it any of the jointed appearance observable on your specimens. I would fain think them distinct species. I was particularly pleased with the specimens of F palmetta in fruit contained in your last letter as satisfying me that I had not been mistaken in what I took for old capsules of this species in my Synopsis. The specimens found by Miss Hill belonged to a different variety & had much larger & more prominent fructification. Of the three Jungermanniae you enclosed No 1 is Jung pumila of Withering a very rare plant indeed. No 2 is Jung purpurea of English Botany which Mr Hooker believes to be nothing more than Jungermannia nemorosa, becoming purple in mountainous situations & the loose one without a No is Jung trichomanes of Dickson. Sertularia pluma is certainly an uncommon as well as a beautiful species but my friends in Devonshire have supplied me both with this & Corallina cristata so that I need not trouble you for either. I will thank you for a morsel of Bryum sessile, merely that I may see what you call so, for I do not exactly know to what species of Orthotrichum Withering gave this name. I think that when you examine the mosses more, you will be much pleased with the genera into which they have been lately divided as the arrangement is highly beautiful & simple. I am never tired of examining these plants under the microscope they furnish to my mind the most wonderful proofs possible of the power of the Deity, & to facilitate my study of them I have in my own copy of Muscologia Hibernica a leaf of each drawn magnified by the side of each description. Of the Fuci you are so good as to mention I should be glad to see any, as I like to know how they differ in different plants. A perfect specimen of F esculentus not too large I much want to figure & I should also be glad of your F ciliatus, palmetta, membranifolius, & of F tomentosus. You are very kind to take so much trouble on my account, but I hope that you will mention what there is in this part of the kingdom that you would like to receive in return & pray oblige me in your next letter with a complete list of the Fuci numerated in my Synopsis that you wish to have, varieties as well as species. I had a great deal more to say but must conclude, to leave room for observations upon your parcel. Pray favour me with a letter as soon as you have leisure, & accept the assurance of the esteem & respect of
Madam, your much obliged & very faithful
Dawson Turner
Yarmouth 2nd March 1808
Fuci
F coronopifolius much larger than ever I saw it before — pray what are its months of fructification & have you seen only one kind of capsules?
Varieties of F lacinatus — different from any I have seen before.
F subfuscus with singular fruit — a similar fructification is figured in Hist. Fuc.
F clavellosus — larger than ours – this, I am sorry to say, is wretchedly figured in Hist. Fuc.
F viridis I had noticed the propensity this plant has of destroying others.
No 1 — I shall publish this as distinct from F lacinatus, though I cannot find any specific characters – it is the most beautiful plant I think of calling it F Ulvoides – if you approve it.
2. Too imperfect to say much too – may it by any possibility be the beginning of F clavellosus?
3. This I consider a very remarkable appearance of F subfuscus.
4. What monsters these are! I see however nothing to separate them from F hypoglossum.
5. Seems a fragment of some thing new.
6. F cristatus var γ Hist Fuc.
7. F tamariscifolius
Ulva
The small specimens are
No 1 U furcellata described by me in the same place as U multifida, but surely the large broad ones are different, besides their size, the obtuse ends, proliferous mode of growth, & they have the tubercles of a Fucus. I had meant to figure this plant in the September No of Hist. Fuc. under the name of F decipiene — Pray favour me with your opinion if the two may not by any possibility be distinct.
No 2 I can make nothing of this, for it will not rise from paper to be examined, excuse me recommending to you for these gelatinous Ulva & other delicate Confervae to put morsels upon glass, by which means they may at any future time be examined under your microscope.
3. A new Ulva found also by Mr Borrer last year in Sussex.
4. This also seems to me quite new & different from any of the varieties of that Proteus U compressa.
5. U multifida
6. I received this some years since from Scotland, & consider it new; but it is own brother to U rubens.
There is also a large green tubular Ulva without a name or a No in your parcel which I do not know.
I will not trouble you to send me any seeds of your Arbutus as we have it in our gardens, but for a supply of specimens next October I shall be very grateful.
Please cite as “EHT007,” in Ɛpsilon: Ellen Hutchins Collection accessed on