My dear Sir
Your Ferns <1> are a very beautiful & extensive collection of Brazilian ones, & I have found several among them which I had not seen before. I have named the whole of them & sent them the beginning of the week to the Steam-packet Office <2> to be returned. But as I believe the Vessel does not sail till Saturday, it will yet be a few days before you can receive them – I think you will do well to arrange the specimens & fasten them on good stout white paper uniform with the rest of your Herbarium.
In your parcel I have sent a smaller one, a box, a box [sic] of Insects for Mr Steven in the Crimea. It was addressed by one of my little boys & I fear he forgot to put upon “by favor of John Hunneman Esqre.”<3> Will you be so kind as to do so & trouble yourself to send it to Mr Hunneman as from me.
Your Arabis <4> is engraved & will be published on the 1st of June.
The Specimen of an Exotic plant you send from a garden is evidently a Cestrum: but though I have taken great pains in the investigation of it, & examined the flower & ascertained that it belongs to the division “with toothless filaments,” I cannot make it agree with any described species: & I believe it to be new.
You will soon receive a small package of Drummond's<5> plants from Jacksonville in Louisiana. The next arrival will be from Texas I hope, but I do not expect it for some months.
Very faithfully Yours
W. J. Hooker.
Glasgow.
Apr. 4. 1833.
Notes:
1. See Doc. No: 02622.
2. Packages being sent between Glasgow and London travelled by sea [see Doc. No: 02816] until rail links were established in the late 1840s.
3. Hooker uses the wrong name for James Hunneman, London nurseryman.
4. See Doc. No: 02586.