I am pretty well in the habit of beginning my letters with apologies, but I don't recollect ever having before had occasion to apologise for writing too frequently. Now, however, I feel the necessity of so doing. I very fortuitously finished my letter this morning in a great hurry lest I should lose the post, and, thinking that I should have a great deal to say upon the contents of your last parcel, determined to leave myself a sheet clear for the purpose, but now that I come to the trial, my great deal proves to be the answer from the mountain. Let me in the first place thank you for your drawings, of which I should be sorry to say anything that might lead you to doubt any sincerity; but, most seriously, I admire their execution as well as prize them for the sake of the artist. You feel that your hand, like the Minstrel’s, lacks ‘the ease’ that marks security to please; you will only be the more qualified at finding, like him, what approbation attends your endeavour. Your F. tomentosus will be very soon engraved. The others, I am sorry to say, seem doomed ‘to blush unseen’ in my portfolios, but they shall not be wholly lost. I trust you will not fail to cultivate this art, without which it is scarcely possible to study the Confervae with success; and you will find that the slightest pencil sketch in a letter will often convey a better idea than the most laboured description. Let me advise you also, if the trouble is not too much, to sketch the leaves of the mosses you examine under your microscope. It saves a prodigious deal of trouble. I only wish I could lend you my own copy of the Muscologia Hibernica to copy what is there done. To return, however, to the proper subject of my letter.
Your beautiful vary of H denticulatum is the var B of my Musc. Hib. – do you know the operculum? —
Your Dicranum allipticum is Grimmia Daviesii, a very rare plant indeed: if you find plenty of it I will beg a good stock. Your doubtful moss found by an alpine lake is Dicranum allipticum. Dicranum squarrosum? — certainly right.
The little plant in a box appears to me the same as I suppose to be a new Madepore.
Jungermannia No 17. Jung minutissima certainly. What Mr Hooker frequently called so he now supposes to be J pumila with fruit, & he hopes you will find more of it.
No 18 Jung curvifolia, barren.
19. J pauciflora in a very fine state. — what you had named ‘J palacea in fruit’ is a fine vary of J reptans. You had called it so before.
Ulva purpurascens ? Certainly right (but it ought to be called U filiformis, that being the older name). — have you not found this both full of gelatinous substance, & quite empty, except that it was inflated like a bladder? And have observed the smell only in this latter state. —
Ulva rubens — the larger brown plant sent under that name is Rivularia vermiculata of Eng. Bot. — is it not distinct? —surely U elminthoides is not so. —
Ulva compressa — your varieties of this are very curious. You will oblige me by collecting it in different gradations.
Ulva ligulata the smaller plant is what has been called U rubra but I agree with you that it is merely a variety.
Variety of F bifidus? If so different from any other I ever saw.
F ruscifolius & F hypoglossum? These too are appearances unlike mine.
Conferva No 1 I am sorry to say I still cannot see a specific character to separate it from C diffusa. Will you oblige me by a specimen or sketching the plant.
No 2 This, I agree with you is different from C stricta & is a beautiful new species.
No 5 — surely distinct enough from C rosea I have not a doubt upon the subject, though I cannot now tell the characters.
Is No 10 a variety of C stricta?
No 13 this is more like C rosea but I think it quite distinct.
No 18 & 19 — I agree with you they are probably the same.
21 how beautiful this be! May it be C Hutchinsiae – if I may, you must send me a great load of it, for I shall give it to everybody.
31 May I beg a sketch of this, however rough? — I cannot make out from my specimens its mode of growth — I have nicknamed it in my collection C pharetrata, from its resemblance in shape to a quiver.
32. — Vaucheria geminata of Eng. Bot.
33. — I know nothing of this. — I hope you will find more of it.
C fruticulosa — a very fine new species — let it keep its name.
Fucus No 10 I dare say you are right that it is only an appearance of F fruticulosus, but what can be more humiliating to one’s pride than not to know apart two so dissimilar plants as that & F cristatus?
No 11 I think it may be F phyllitis.
Ulva No 11. This is a nondescript species, which Mr Dillwyn at first found last year at the Isle of Wight, & means to publish in the Linn. Trans.
No 12. I dare say you are right in considering this different from U rubens, but a magnified sketch must determine it. Even specimen on glass can scarcely recover.
No 13 — This recovers itself imperfectly, but appears to be exactly the Ulva fatida of Vaucher.
The little moss in your letter I have examined carefully & think it a new species. It is own brother to B carneum, but differs strikingly in having the ends of its leaves acuminated by the nerve penetrating beyond them, the appearance so much so as to appear hair-pointed: this, I believe, is never the case in B carnuem. Will you be able to get more of it? — Your observation upon the inflation of marine plants you will find noticed in the Hist. Fuc before I received your letter in a note to F vesiculosus. Conf coccinea is never found here, except with such capsules as Dillwyn has figured. I have specimens with lancelate pods, but should be glad of more, & still more glad of a sketch. My plates of dasyphyllus & kaliformis are, as you justly observe, not happy. If Bryum conoideum be plentiful in your neighbourhood, I should be thankful for specimens. I beg so freely of you that I would fain hope I shall at last induce you to follow my example, & really I am convinced you have yourself such a pleasure in giving, that you should know that others have the same, & should therefore afford them the opportunity of indulging it, but you only give, you will not ask.
Believe me dear Madam
Your obliged & very faithful
Dawson Turner
Yarmouth 8th January 1809
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