Hitcham, Bildeston, Suffolk
16 Oct 1856
My dear Sir,
I have received the document quite safe. Any of the parchments I sent, & which were not suitable to your collections, you may cut up for directions on jam pots &c. Thanks for thinking of me on the top of Swiss mountains. My Son in Law & Daughter with my second son were there also. The last has brought home above 1000 specimens of dried plants, & they are at this moment being properly poisoned for Herbarium preservation by a lass whom I employ largely for such purposes. My son has taken to Botany in good earnest & means to make this Science his Profession. He returns to Cambridge this week. The plant you bonnetted was no doubt the Impatiens noli-me-tangere, not very uncommon on the hills on the continent, but scarcely found any where in England:- unless it is truly wild about Ambleside, hardly a native. It is a Balsam (in common language) & its seed vessels burst elastically when touched. Hence the name
Believe me
Very truly Yrs
J. S. Henslow
Please cite as “HENSLOW-1420,” in Ɛpsilon: The Correspondence of John Stevens Henslow accessed on