‘A vast many specimens’
On this day 215 years ago, 18th April 1810, Ellen wrote another short letter to Dawson Turner, this time focusing entirely on botanical subjects. Most unusually for their correspondence there are no mentions of health issues, the weather, family, problems with parcels, or poetry and literature enjoyed.
Read the whole letter HERE.
The previous letter was written on 7th April. Ellen is delighted with her finds since then and seemed to be hurriedly putting a letter together to go with them.
Long walk, but where?
Ellen wrote that she had just returned from a long walk. She rarely gives place names of where she has been in her letters, presumably because they would not be recognised or mean anything to Dawson Turner.
Picturing the Confervae
I have gone through about two thirds of the 240 or so of Ellen’s drawings held in the Archives and Library at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew looking for dates and notes. There does not appear to be a drawing of Rivularia angulosa as mentioned in this letter. From Dawson Turner’s next letter to Ellen in May that year, it seems that Ellen enclosed a number of drawings of Confervae in this letter of 18th April. Maybe one was that pictured above and (showing the full sheet) below – Conferva gelatinosa. It is difficult to read the month in the date at the bottom of the sheet.
When I have been through the last third of the drawings, I should be able to sort out more about which drawings were sent when. There are two drawings of Conferva foetida in the last batch still to be photographed.
Careful work
Ellen wrote “I have examined a vast many specimens of this plant” and here she shows the quality and reliability of her work. She was willing to put in the detailed work necessary to search for important features and to ensure that the specimens she shared and those she used for drawings were typical.
Read the whole of the letter of 18th April HERE. The next letter in the correspondence is from Dawson Turner to Ellen and has an illegible date. It is likely to be the beginning of May. A blog post will be here in early May with the letter and some more notes.
Madeline Hutchins
Researcher on Ellen and her great-great-grandniece
18th April 2025
Conferva gelatinosa 1810 Kew 122