WCP3833

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

August 1st 1901

Dear Sir Thiselton Dyer¹

Ans[were]d 3.8.01²

Five years ago I sent you some small tubes of what purported to be Nymphaea gigantea³ from the gardens of the Brisbane Acclimalisation[sic] Soc[iet]y. These flowered with me the next year & are in flower now but seem indistinguishable from N[ymphaea] Stellata⁴. On telling my friend in Sydney of this he in due course enclosed me a letter from the Brisbane curator, saying, that I was mistaken — that what he [2] sent were N[yphmaea]. gigantea, because he had no others in the gardens. He added, that even with them the flowers always came small & few — petalled the first year, but increased in size till in 2-3 years they developed to the many-petalled large flowers of N[ymphaea]. gigantea.

I do not know whether yours have been kept and have thus changed, — but I my friend has now sent me a lot of wild roots from the Hunter River, its most [3] Southern Station in Australia, and as they are large and in good state I send you some, & trust that they will be all right.

Believe me | Yours very truly | Alfred R Wallace [signature]