My dear Hooker

I have just read with great interest your R. Soc. address, for it told me much that was new, & how wonderfully active the Soc. is.² I cannot think what will be done in the future, the work augments so much that it can hardly be done by volunteers. As Owen sneered, I think hereafter the Pres. will have to be a paid officer, & then it will be frightfully difficult to get a good one!³

You were a good man to write to me the other day & to tell me about the seeds exposed to intense cold.⁴ By an odd chance I had been speculating a few days before whether any degree of cold would kill the germs of Bacteria & such like, & had supposed it w^d. not; though there cannot be many such germs in Esquimauxs’ dens, otherwise all the inhabitants would perish.

You ask what I & we all are about, & I have nothing to say, as I am only working up & adding to old matter about Dimorphic & Trimorphic plants.⁵ In about a month’s time I shall ask you to let Frank to come to Kew to examine the dried specimens of certain genera, about which I know of indications of dimorphism; & to beg, if you have sufficient specimens, to give me a flower of each form; for I will rank no plant as dimorphic without comparing pollen-grains & stigmas. Frank has nearly finished his paper on the protrusion of Protoplasmic filaments from the glands of Dipsacus, & the discovery seems to me a very remarkable one.⁶ I know that it will make you savage, but I think the great honour of its being printed in the R. Soc. Transactions, (sh^d. the referees so order) would stimulate his zeal & make him think better of his work, so that I have resolved to communicate it to Soc^y.⁷

Ever yours affectionately | C. Darwin