From Ellen Hutchins to Dawson Turner   22 Sep 1810

I had the pen in my hand to write to you, my dear Sir, when your letter came in. I had spent the morning sketching the enclosed & feeling anxious that you should see those more highly magnified parts of the plants I call Rivulariae. determined to send them to you without delay. I hope you will be pleased with them & think them correct of those plants I sent you last year drawings of the natural size & parts not sufficiently magnified to give a clear idea of the mode of growth. Of what I now send added to the former will I hope give you a good view. I do not think the drawings I sent of Ulva rubens & Riv vermiculata were good and you shall soon have better. With Rivularia tuberiformis, if you should want it. You will observe that the plant sent as Ulva No 12 differs from U rubens in being composed of a tubular skin from the surface of which appear simple jointed filaments, bearing capsules. No 6 is formed of a number of pellucid colourless tubes curving lengthways through the stem & branches, & throwing out alternate bundles of branched jointed filaments. I have not been able to find capsules, though I have examined a great number of plants but have met with an appearance similar to the fruit of Conf gelantinosa which appears to me no more than a collection of young filaments the same I have found in Ulva elminthoides which seems formed of branched filaments closely entangled in the middle, becoming thicker & coloured towards the apices. The plants sent as Ulva verticillata bear capsules plentifully as well as U rubens & Riv vermiculata. I very much doubt that the supposed fruit of Conf gelatinosa is more than a collection of young shoots. How well it agrees in habit & structure with those beautiful marine plants. I have been greatly vexed at not being able to get a single morsel of Fucus capillaris to magnify. It being of the same nature. I have been highly pleased by the discovery of the fruit of Conf sordida which is what I have long expected to find it, the same as that of Conf alternata. Do you still think No 64 only a variety of alternatata? I hardly think it can be so. It is so much coarser, its colour bright green & has not the alternately dark and pellucid joints so remarkable in alternata. I lately met with more of the new anictangium the last day I was out & with more fruit than before. You shall have some with the next things. You were quite at liberty to do what you pleased with it or anything I have met with. Let me now thank you for your kind concern about me. My last letter will explain the cause of my silence. Since the day I wrote, I have been ill with a bilious attack less severe than usual but enough to prevent me doing any thing until this day. I am truly glad to find you have had the enjoyment of such society as you describe & truly gratified for your kind wish that I should share such pleasure. That of seeing you would have been the highest gratification to me. I feel pleased, though I am sensible that you feel disappointment when you say you wished to be here. You imagine me greatly superior to what I really am, & whenever we do meet, you will be disappointed. I warn you truly of what you have to expect, a friend who will rejoice to see you with the mind & manners of a very retired inhabitant of the mountains, who has seen very few people. I who through having had bad health & many domestic anxieties am more serious than most young people. Now for the country, it’s poor soil, mountainous & shales to the shore. There are many pretty peaceful looking spots. Few more so than the little place we inhabit. The view from our door is very soft & pleasing, particularly at evening, when the sun retiring behind a beautiful mountain, Sugarloaf, just guilds the high grounds & leaves the little cove before us in deep, soft shade, or when the moon shines brightly upon it. I often think of the strong & melancholy contrast between this peaceful, happy looking scene & the restless minds of its inhabitants. I intend to draw Fucus loreus next spring tide & when it is done will send it. Tell me of anything I can get or do for you. The Ophrys you mentioned I have not seen. I have never met with any but ovata. The Pinguicula you shall have abundantly in spring. The specimens I have are not the very best, & on that account, I don’t send them. It abounds in this place. Pray send me a specimen of Ophrys ovata for perhaps I have mistaken yet I hardly think I have. I gave specimens of mine to Mr Drummond when he was here. He seemed glad to get them & if the species you speak of was sent by Mr Hincks from this part of the country, it may be mine. I would enclose a specimen, but that I don’t wish to put it in with the enclosure in this letter. I am glad Mr Hooker is about to publish his Iceland tour & I hope to he will publish the Jungermanniae before he leaves England. It will be very mortifying if he does not after having prepared for it. I am slowly collecting Lichens I can but creep & have a few more to send you. I have planned two or three little expeditions to the mountains for next week. Sir Thomas Gage sends me Lichens from Killarney, which must be a fine situation for them, the rocks being limestone. I am greatly obliged to you for the specimens of Confervae. I shall be busy examining them tomorrow. I am particularly glad to get Riv argolosa to compare with ours, which I have lately found in a fine state on sea rocks, covering large patches & some what like the beginning of Riv tuberiformis. I am curious to hear of the last parcel I sent you.

It is full time both for you & me that I should cease to write. The clock has struck one & all the house are asleep except your obliged and faithful friend E Hutchins, September 22, 1810

I put in a specimen of the Ophrys I found here, if that sent to Dr Smith be the same, it was found by me here, and I believe by no other person. It grows in our lawn and one of our fields. I have not seen it elsewhere. I thought it ovata. It has a strong smell when fresh. If it is what you want I can draw it next spring.