WCP6350

Letter (WCP6350.7345)

[1]1

Deverel Farm,

Milborne S[ain]t. Andrew,

Blandford.

8 Sep[tember]. 1896.

Dear Mr Mitten2,

Many thanks for your note. When I can get at the specimens again I will have another look at the rhizome of Narthecium?3 which I have taken out of the list of mosses. The wiry rhizome is very likely to be preserved, though it never occurred to me before. I had to return the revise [sic] before seeing your letter, but will try to add Laurer’s4 name to Mnium ruficum5 later on.

I am writing to Ridley6 this [2] week & will mention your request. In his last he does not say much about botany, but has seen the white snake that inhabits the Selangor caves7 — it has large eyes, & is said to feed on bats. By the by, while he is exploring these caves for the B[ritish]. A[ssociation].8 committee he might find curious subterranean mosses & hepaticae9.

Your new Crepis10 is a most interesting find. Have you examined the fruits of the three allied species minutely? I find the fruit-characters of all our compositae11[sic] extremely well marked, except where on other grounds there is a doubt as to the validity of the species. I have not yet been able to examine the Hieracia12[sic], & cannot say that I [3] have any great hope of valuable results from them.

I enclose two Dorset papers. A few plants are mentioned in the one relating to Blashenwell13, the other is not botanical. The Hoxne Report14 I will send directly after the Brit[ish]. Assoc[iation]. meeting.

Yours faithfully | Clement Reid15 [signature]

1
The page is numbered [WP15/1/4] in pencil in the top LH corner.
2
Mitten, William (1819-1906) English pharmaceutical chemist and authority on bryophytes (mosses and liverworts). He built a collection of some 50,000 specimens at his home ‘Treeps’ in Hurstpierpoint, Sussex. His daughter Ann ("Annie") married ARW in 1866.
3
A genus of herbaceous flowering plants, traditionally assigned to the family Liliaceae but currently placed in the family Nartheciaceae. Narthecium ossifragum, the bog asphodel, is found on wet, boggy moorlands in Europe. The author queries either the identity of the specimen or its classification as a moss.
4
Laurer, Johann Friedrich (1798-1873) German botanist, anatomist and pharmacologist.
5
Mnium is a genus of moss in the family Mniaceae. No record of Mnium ruficum found.
6
Ridley, Henry Nicholas (1855-1956) English botanist and geologist. He was the first Scientific Director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens (1888-1911) and was also largely responsible for establishing the rubber industry on the Malay peninsula.
7
The Batu Caves, near Selangor, Malaysia were discovered in 1879, and their general character and fauna was published in Ridley, H. N. (1898) Caves in the Malay Peninsula: Appendix. Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 1898: 580.
8
The British Association for the Advancement of Science (founded 1831) is a learned society promoting science, directing general attention to scientific matters and facilitating interaction between scientific workers.
9
Liverworts.
10
Genus of annual and perennial flowering plants of the family Asteraceae, superficially resembling the dandelion, commonly known in some parts of the world as hawksbeard or hawk's-beard.
11
The aster, daisy, or composite family of flowering-plants, which is also called Asteraceae.
12
The genus Hieracium is in the Compositae family of flowering plants.
13
Blashenwell Farm pit, on the Isle of Purbeck near Corfe Castle, Dorset is a geological site featuring a Pleistocene tufaceous deposit.
14

Reid, C. (1896) Report on Relation of Palaeolithic Man to the Glacial Epoch' (Hoxne Excavation) Brit. Assoc.,1896.

The Hoxne clay brick pit in Mid Suffolk, England yielded the first recognised flints as human tools. Excavations of the Hoxne brick pit by the British Association (see Endnote 8) in 1896 established the climatic context of the flint and animal remains. A major interglacial period — the Hoxnian — was identified as being approximately 375,000 to 425,000 years ago.

15
Reid, Clement (1853-1916) British geologist and palaeobotanist (and a great nephew of Michael Faraday). He was particularly concerned with tertiary geological deposits and their paleontology.

Editorial information

Status: Draft transcription [Letter (WCP6350.7345)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by O'Dell, Sandra [2018-08-15]

Please cite as “WCP6350,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 1 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP6350