My dear Dyer

The Euphorbias arrived in beautiful condition.¹ I have a small plant of Eucalyptus globulus & having cut off two leaves the one with the bloom removed dried quicker than the other. This makes me anxious to have one or two branches of this tree with leaves still horizontal in position, so that we may compare by weighing the rate of evaporation of 6 or 8 leaves with the bloom on with another 6 or 8× with bloom removed. Could you spare a branch or two; & if bent & placed in a largish box with no packing, the bloom would not suffer. The case interests me as bearing on the existence of many plants with bloom in the dry Australian climate. Are there any Australian Acacias with moderately large leaves covered with bloom? I have A cultriformis, but can foresee that it will be almost impossible to remove the bloom without injury to the leaves, & therefore I should be glad of a species with larger & more separate leaves.²

Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

P.S. | Your little note just received. I sh^d. be very glad of Mertensia maritima.—³