Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, Louis Agassiz: his life and correspondence, third edition

[660] come to light tending to confirm my results. The Whymper Expedition brought to England a number of fossil plants, which have been sent to me for examination. I found eighty species, of which thirty-two from North Greenland are new, so that we now know 137 species of Miocene plants from North Greenland (70° N. lat). It was a real delight to me to find the fruit cup of the Castanea [chestnut] inclosing three seeds (three Kastanica) and covered with prickles like the Castanea vesca; and, furthermore, I was able to prove by the flowers, which were preserved with the fruit, that the supposition given in the Arctic Flora (p. 106) was correct; namely, that the leaves of the Fagus castaneafolia Ung. truly belong to a Castanea. As several fruits are contained in one fruit cup, this Miocene Castanea must have been nearer to the European species (C. vesca) than to the American Castanea (the C. pumila Micha). The leaves have been drawn in the Flora Arctica, and are also preserved in the Whymper collection.

I have received very beautiful and large leaves of the Castanea which I have called C. Ungeri, from Alaska. I am now occupied in working up this fossil Alaskan flora; the plants are in great part drawn, and contain