From Ellen Hutchins to Dawson Turner   8 Oct 1808

Dear Sir

I should have answered your kind & highly interesting letter sooner but that I have been in a state somewhat similar to that you describe. The ill health of my friends & my own during almost the whole of the summer has withdrawn most of my attention from every thing that could concern or delight me — Collecting & examining plants is the greatest amusement of my very retired life & though I have not been able to attend to them so much as I hoped, I have a great many very fine specimens preserved to send you. I hope I shall have the pleasure to learn by your next letter that your health & that of your children is restored. I have suffered & have every day so much cause to suffer for the ill health of those who are most dear to me that I know pretty well how to feel for those who are similarly circumstanced. I have much reason to thank you & Mrs Turner for the desire you are so kind as to express of seeing me in England. To become personally acquainted with you & her would be a high gratification indeed. My mother's age & the state of health of one of my brothers who has by a paralytic complaint lost the use of his limbs binds me so strongly to home that I am not likely to quit it. Perhaps you may come to Ireland & if you should visit Killarney I may hope for the pleasure of seeing you here. My mother will be very much pleased to see you & to have it in her power to thank you for all the assistance & information you have given me —

I am very glad you were pleased with seeing the fruit of Fucus tomentosus. I shall with great pleasure when I am a little better attempt to draw the whole plant for you. The only objection I could possibly have to doing it is that of not being able for want of practise to execute it well. I have some very fine specimens of the plant preserved to send you. Of the first variety I sent you of Fucus cristatus I have got a rich store of beautiful specimens. I think I have found it with fruit similar to that of the other varieties I have sent you & quite unlike that of your F cristatus. You will I should suppose find it a distinct species. I enclose some fragments with fruit. I have examined a large quantity without finding any other appearance of fructification. The root in all the varieties I have met with is fibrous, that of your F cristatus is described otherwise. I enjoy the pleasure you will have in the number & beauty of the specimens I mean to send you. I have been so fortunate as to get a few plants of the large beautifully veined variety of F laceratus that I sent you a single one of in a letter last year & of which I never saw more until I met with a few this season. I have it in fruit & shall be able to send you two specimens. I have got F Griffithsii; mine is of the same colour as F plicatus & quite as short or even shorter than what you sent me. I shall send you some of mine in the next parcel, as soon as I have specimens of Arbutus dried. I shall send it to Dublin to be forwarded to you. Last June I met with a few plants of Serapias grandiflora. I believe it had not been found in Ireland before. It is very rare [illegible] where it grows here, how very beautiful it is — I have also found Vicia sylvatica which is a rare plant in this part of the country — I am greatly obliged by your kind offer of procuring for me L’histoire des conferves d’eau douce & for mentioning it to me. I shall try to get it without giving you so much trouble particularly as the difficulty of sending anything over to Ireland is so great. I am so fortunate as to have good specimens of F alatus. Did I send you or do you wish to have some from me? I am highly pleased that you got the parcel I last sent safe & that you like it so well. If it contained anything that you wish to get more of pray tell me before I send the things I have now by me. I could find more to say but that I have already written more than my head is well able to bear. I began this letter a week past but have been so ill that I could not finish it until this day —

I beg you & Mrs Turner to be assured of the esteem

& respect of your truly obliged

E Hutchins

Ballylickey

October 8th 1808

I shall put up specimens of Dicranum ellipticum in the next parcel & if you should wish for more of any of the Jungermanniae pray tell me. I hope your Highland travellers had more favourable weather than we have had here —