From Ellen Hutchins to Dawson Turner   4 Jul 1809

I opened your kind letter My dear Sir with much pleasure but was greatly shaken by the account of your domestic troubles. I did indeed feel for you & still more for Mrs Turner’s sufferings, pray tell me how she is. I have delayed writing to you until I should receive your parcel which was delayed for a week or more longer than I expected. It has reached me safe, & I thank you much for it, & for the trouble you have taken of quoting Campbell’s two beautiful poems. they have afforded me & others great pleasure. I should have written to you from the mountains had I been successful, but I was most unfortunate in meeting the worst weather & being attacked by my old enemy, severe headache. I did not meet with anything, but some better specimens than any I have sent you of the pretty little Bryum No 4, but still without fruit though I saw it in considerable quantity & saw very young plants too. I fear you will not allow me much merit for wishing Mr Hooker success in his voyage to Iceland, now that you have had the goodness to tell me I should share his treasures. I think, but who could be sure, I should have had as warm wishes for his success without being myself interested. Should Mr Woods come this way my friends will be glad to give him every assistance. A letter from you would ensure him a welcome here.

I have lately met with Fucus aculeatus growing & in a very beautiful state. When young the plants are covered with bunches of branched, jointed filaments regularly placed. I shall enclose a morsel for you & on the same paper a few broken leaves of Fucus phyllitis in which I think you will find seeds near the ends. The beautiful rivularia I sent as Ulva verticillata is a rare plant. I hope to have more of it to send you in about a month; I shall try and draw it. Fucus capillaris is certainly a Rivularia, I shall send you a drawing rather better than mine generally are. Of another rivularia I sent as an Ulva No 6 I have preserved for you a good supply. Ulva No 14 is the same as No 4 in a young state. It does not seem to me to belong to the Confervae, though, sometimes in old plants, the end of the branches have rather a jointed appearance. Conf scopulorum is not a marine plant. C mirabilis seems to me very distinct from Myochrous. The specimens I found had I believe lost their dark blue green colour from age. Next year you shall have more. C Hookeri is a rare plant. I am not sure that any specimens I sent were distinct from rosea, but a few on one sheet in one of the last parcels, the large ones No 19 are certainly rosea. I have a drawing to send you of C Hookeri. I have more of the varieties of Hypnum rutabulum to send. I am very sure that H umbratum & flagellate are the same plant, they unite by varieties so completely. I have also seen a variety in habit so like laete-virens that until I examined it with a microscope I was sure I had found that species. I sent you in a letter sometime ago, just before the last two parcels a great many morsels of mosses. Several of them are new to me, if you can find them I should like to know your opinion & also what you may wish for more of. You must not say you will not ask for anything you wish to get more of, it would deprive me of one of my greatest pleasures. I shall have a parcel to send you very soon when I can do a few drawings I wish to send with it. At present I am rather hurried. Pray tell me if the little plant enclosed is not a species of Zoresta. I found it yesterday growing sparingly in the mouth of a little rivet that falls into a lake with which the sea communicates. I am to go to another lake after breakfast this day. If I can find anything that could be useful to you, you shall soon hear. I have not in this letter left myself room to ask for the mosses you so kindly offered, I am in no hurry to get them until near winter as I shall then draw mosses entirely & at this time the sea plants fully occupy me. I have done nearly 76 Confervae and a few Fuci. My F kaliformis is well done. If I can do anything for you pray tell me. Working for oneself is very dull, but to do anything for another person gives one spirit to proceed.

I am just going to begin Dante which I have not read. Believe me My dear Sir very faithfully Yours

E Hutchins

July 4^th 1809