‘I will pay particular attention’
On This Day, 215 years ago, 20th February 1810, Ellen replied to the letters from Dawson Turner written on 23rd and 28th January (see earlier posts for these letters). Read the 20th February letter HERE.
Thank you, but no
Ellen turned down the request made in the letter of 23rd January, in which Dawson Turner and Edward James Smith, President and founder of the Linnean Society, asked her to describe the new Confervae (algae) she had found for publication in the Society’s Transactions, rather than Dawson Turner writing the descriptions. As in other similar situations, Ellen showed her modesty and what appears to be her under-estimation of her own abilities. She did not think that she was capable of writing the descriptions.
She wrote: ‘but I should feel afraid to attempt describing anything. You know I am good for nothing but gathering up all that I can find for those who know how to observe them with scientific eyes. Mine alas are in every way very short sighted.’
Short-sighted
Ellen mentioned her short-sightedness in other letters. I find it interesting that some botanists and botanical artists I have spoken to have said that being short sighted would have helped with the examination of the small and complicated things in which Ellen specialised – mosses, liverworts, lichens and the tiny marine and freshwater algae. After I had written about this, see HERE others have told me that it would have been a disadvantage not an advantage. It appears to be something where there is not a common agreement. See one botanical artist’s description of her unconventional way of benefiting from her short-sightedness in drawing and painting sphagnum moss HERE.
Insightful and scientific
Ellen wrote: ‘I can hardly believe that Conferva paradoxa is not rather an Ulva’. She was right – as is shown by its current names, Enteromorpha flexuosa and Ulva flexuosa. I would say that in her letters and in notes on specimens, Ellen shows ample evidence of having ‘scientific eyes’. As far as I know no work has been undertaken on Ellen’s analysis of problem species and her views on where they should be placed in families etc. I think that there is great scope for a study on this.
‘I shall pay particular attention’
Reading her letters, I find that Ellen often had a number of projects or things to focus on happening in parallel with each other and had great hopes of having time to give to these in the months ahead. In this letter she wrote of Confervae: ‘I feel sure that I shall be able to make out in the spring & summer 5 or 6 more that are not in Dillwyn & which I have never yet drawn’. She asked Dawson Turner to send her specimens of ten species for her herbarium to make ID easier. Ellen also wrote: ‘During the course of next summer I shall attend with all possible diligence to the Rivulariae & expect to find more specimens than you have yet had from me.’ As well as: ‘To the lichens I shall pay particular attention & collect in large quantities for you.’ She also mentioned Fucus loreus and shells.
Conferva elongata [Polysyphonia elongata] drawing
The drawing of Ellen’s shown above is dated 14th February 1810, six days before she wrote the letter on 20th February. I don’t know if Conferva elongata is one of the Confervae that Ellen mentions in the letter, but hope to find out, if I can. Next week I have booked places in the Library and Archives at Kew Gardens and the Herbarium at the Natural History Museum to look at Ellen’s seaweed / algae drawings (Kew) and seaweed / algae / liverwort specimens (NHM) to find and record notes and dates on them, to be able to match the drawings and specimens to the letters – bringing the words and images of Ellen’s story together. This is what I am paying ‘particular attention’ to at present.
Access to images
Some of Ellen’s specimens are available to be seen, with notes and dates where they have them. Some have been scanned and appear in the Data Portal of the Natural History Museum. Ellen mentions Fucus aculeatus and Fucus loreus in the letter, now named Desmarestia aculeata and Himanthalia elongata. Images of Ellen’s specimens of both are in the Data Portal. Results for searching it on ‘Hutchins’ are HERE.
Images of Ellen’s specimens also appear in the New York Botanical Garden’s C V Starr Virtual Herbarium, see HERE.
Read the whole letter HERE.
The next letter in this sequence is another one from Ellen to Dawson Turner on 7th April and there will be a post about it here on 7th April 2025. The whole of the correspondence from 1810 is available on the Ellen’s Letters page HERE.
Madeline Hutchins: researcher on Ellen and her great, great grandniece
20th February 2025