WCP6940

[1]

Broadstone, Wimborne.

Jan^y 30th. 1908

Dear Mr. Slater

Thanks for the books & papers you sent me.

I wanted the "Mosses of the Pyrenees" to see how many species Spruce added to them — either new species altogether or those never obtained before in the Pyrenees. But in all his elaborate paper, there is not a word on this — which most men would have made so much of. By going carefully through the paper I find 10 species, which he describes as absolutely new. [2] But I see no means of getting at the number he added to the Pyrenean moss-flora, without an amount of work I cannot undertake, & books of reference I have not got.

From ^what he says in his paper on "The Botany of the Pyrenees" — published in 1846 — there were very few mosses recorded up to that time. But how many, he nowhere states! Do you know if any one else has done stated this — or in any later book is there [3] any such statement?

Did Spruce add 10 p.c. or 50 p.c. to the Mosses previously known, from the Pyrenees? I have no means of forming a judgment. Have you? or can you refer me to any one who can, or is likely to be able to say [?]

Exactly the same thing occurs in Spruce's great work on the Hepatica of S. America — not a word to say how many completely new species he added ! [4]

Do you know of any specialist in European Mosses — who would be likely to give me the facts as regards the Pyrenees. I hate not to be able to say a word about it.

Yours very truly | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]