From Ellen Hutchins to Dawson Turner   15 Apr 1808

I have lately been so successful in finding sea plants that I can no longer resist the inclination I feel to trouble you with another letter and to send you a little of what I have met with in the hope that they may be interesting to you and that you will excuse the liberty I take. I have been disappointed in my expectation of finding Fucus cristatus in fruit. I went to the rock where I found it, but the winter storms to which it is greatly exposed have completely destroyed the plant for this season & have hardly left any appearance of it. I have got another plant which is less rare & seems to me a variety of it. Perhaps you may find some distinctions that I do not see. It is when recent less compressed & much finer in all its parts, has very much a jointed appearance so much that it is difficult even with a common magnifying glass to know that it is not a conferva. However a microscope shows directly that it is not really jointed but that the appearance of joints is caused by the reticulations of the surface of the frond being closer & smaller at certain distances than in the intermediate parts. I have not found any fruit in a vast many plants I examined. It is not easy to get a good specimen, it is so much injured by nests of little worms. I enclose one marked No 9, & another little plant No 10 that I am not certain about & should be glad to know if it is Fucus amphibius. It is not rare in pools along the shore. No 11 is not very common & seems distinct from young plants of any of the larger Fuci — The plant I enclose as an Ulva marked No 7 is not rare & grows to a much larger size than this specimen.The little thing marked No 8 is I believe, an Ulva though it has much the appearance of a Conferva when recent. I have some of it on glass & some on paper to send & have also very fine specimens of what I sent before marked No 2. We have in summer many varieties of Ulva dichotoma. I have got some specimens of Fucus esculentus but none to please me very much. I believe they are as good as can be got. I selected them from hundreds of plants but it is hardly possible to get a whole one & the small plants have not got the appendages at the base — Of Fucus tomentosus I have very fine specimens one 15 inches long. Some plants are greatly compressed & near half an inch broad. Those large compressed plants do not roll on the paper as I mentioned to you. It is only the small round ones that do so. I have not seen any appearance of decay in this plant nor is it after any storm thrown onshore. I have a plant that I was surprised to hear was published as a Conferva in English botany under the name of C verrucosa. Do you want any of it? Have you met with F canaliculatus in an inflated state? It is so common a plant in this country that the shore is as yellow with it in summer as the land is with Furze.We have F mamillosus, plicatus & rotundas but they are not very common. We have one or two varieties of F confervoides great plenty of F digitatus both varieties of bulbosus. I have a good small specimen of the last if you should want it —

Conferva flocculosa grows here in the sea on small Fuci & Confervae, it has when recent a rich brown colour, but changes in drying to green. Yesterday I found Conferva aerea for the first time. I have some others whose names I do not know. I should like to know if you wish for more specimens of any of the plants I have sent you. I shall probably meet with most of them during the summer & I should be sorry to throw away specimens of any things that could give pleasure to persons interested in them —

I have got plenty of Dicranum osmundioides; in what I have met with, the leaves terminate in a sharp point —

I beg you to accept the assurance of the respect with which I am

your most obliged servant

E. Hutchins

Ballylickey

April 15th 1808