Dear Sir,—

I am going to republish my dimorphic papers with new matter, and with an abstract of all that has appeared. In an old letter of yours you tell me that you have seen only one form of Lagerstræmia, and that this was sterile with their own pollen in your gardens.¹ Can you give me any further information? I suppose you have a collection of dried plants in the gardens, and if so would you kindly look at the dried specimens and see if you can make out whether two or three forms exist. They would be easily recognised by the length of the pistils and stamens and differently coloured anthers. If you can find different forms, perhaps Dr King (if told the object) would allow you to send me a flower or two of each form, so that I might measure the size of the pollen grains.² I hope that you have received a copy of a new book of mine despatched about a fortnight ago.³

I remain, my dear sir, | Yours sincerely, | Ch. Darwin.