Philip left me on Monday evening and went to Prague. On Tuesday I arranged passport, left parcels to be sent to Hamburg, took leave; came out to Nussdorf after dinner, from which the steamboat leaves, and after seeing my luggage deposited safely on board, I climbed the Leopoldsberg, a steep mountain between eight hundred and nine hundred feet high, and enjoyed the beautiful and extensive view from its summit,—a fine view of Vienna, of the Danube branching into many different streams, forming pretty green islands, and the whole of the broad valley far into Hungary. In a fine day, it is said the towers of Pressburg, forty miles off, may be distinguished. The Danube, which is here as large as the Niagara, broad and swift, washes the base of the mountains, and the view up the river, though not so extensive, is more picturesque. I collected a handful of plants, bid good-by to Vienna, and descended, slept on shore, and was on board the boat in time to start with it at five o’clock this morning.
This is the first time I have slept in a genuine German bed,—a feather-bed beneath, and an eider-down bed the only cover. It is inclosed in a sheet like a pillow-case, and under this you creep. In the winter it might do very well, but at this time of the year it is very oppressive. The upper sheet here I find, in all cases, is tied fast to the coverlet, which is all of one piece, and just long enough to cover a moderately sized man like myself from the chin to the toes. A taller person must choose between his shoulders and his toes, for they cannot both be covered.
Living is dear in Vienna. I stopped at a cheap hotel, being aware of this, and lived as economically as I well could, but I find I have made way with a very considerable sum. The only way to travel cheaply anywhere on the Continent is not to be in a hurry, and to understand the language.
Notabilia for Dr. T.—I have seen Corda[105] at Vienna. He is one of the curators of the collection at Prague, and was at Vienna on a visit. Learning that I was there, he called and left his card. I afterwards saw him at his hotel. He is a little fellow about thirty, with a small expressive countenance. He works chiefly at minute fungi, on which he is publishing a large work. I saw a part of it in London. He showed me an immense quantity of drawings, which he makes with great rapidity. He is also publishing a work supplementary to Sternberg’s “Flora of the Former World,” a work of which Corda did a good part. He gave me two copies of a lithograph of Count Sternberg,—now dead, as you know,—done by himself. I observe by his drawings that he has anticipated an unpublished discovery of Valentine’s, which he showed to Lindley and myself in London, about the holes in the tissue of Sphagnum opening exteriorly. I looked at Corda’s microscope (one of Shiek [?] at Berlin), but it is inferior to the English or Chevalier’s.
I made a second visit to Fenzl, as he lay in bed; had a long botanical talk with him, and think him a most promising botanist.
Ungnadia (the character of which Endlicher has not yet published,—the last plate in the “Atakta”) was named in memory of Baron Ungnade, once an ambassador from Austria to Constantinople or Persia, I forget which, and the first to introduce Æsculus Hippocastanum into Europe,—hence the propriety of the name. Endlicher is soon to publish the description in the “Annals of the Vienna Museum,” which work, with the “Iconographia Generum Plantarum,” he has promised to send to Hamburg for me, along with the parcels of plants given me. We have studied the new Loganiaccous plant from Florida. It proves, as Brown guessed, near his Logania § (or Gen.) Stomandra, but extremely distinct from that or any other genus, by the character of the style which Decaisne first noticed. Endlicher is to give a figure in “Iconographia Generum Plantarum,” and the description has gone to the printer in one of Endlicher’s articles in the “Annals of the Vienna Museum,”—Cœlostylis Loganioides, Torr. & Gr. Can’t we get more of it? Has Leavenworth found it?
I have been looking over the “Reliquiæ Hænkeanæ,” and examining what specimens of the collection from North America they have in the Vienna Herbarium. Endlicher goes this week to Carlsbad to recruit his health, stopping a day at Prague. He has kindly taken a list of my desiderata of the species published in that work, and I hope to get some bits of them. I have copied so much from the work that we can get along even if I do not see it again, but as I was about to purchase it, Endlicher suggested that he should see if Presl himself has not a copy left for us. Following this hint I have sent by Endlicher a copy of the “Flora” to Presl,[106] in nomine auctorum.
There is a new genus of Presl in Loaseæ (Acrolasia) from Mexico, which may be Nuttall’s. The most curious thing is a new genus of Datisceae from Monterey (why have none of the other collectors found it?), called Tricerastes; very interesting.
I find from all inquiries that it is very difficult to find Nees von Esenbeck[107] at Breslau, especially in the summer. He is a queer stick altogether, is not well satisfied with his situation at Breslau, and spends the greater part of his time at a little place high up in the Riesengebirge, studying Hepaticæ.
I have bought Grisebach’s new “Genera et Species Gentianearum,” and have been studying it on my way in the steamboat. It seems very well done, particularly his preliminary matter on structure, affinities, development, geographical distribution, etc., which is very interesting. It is very carelessly printed. Our well-known “Tuckerton,” in the pine-barrens, figures under the form of “Juckerten”! Let this suffice at present.