Dear Sir,

I thank you for your very courteous letter & for the present of your work.¹ I am delighted that there should be a Naturalist in Venezuela capable of observing the many interesting products of that country: & I hope that you may be successful in your researches. As you are so kind as to offer me any in⁠⟨⁠forma⁠⟩⁠tion, I will ask you one question, though it is not probable that you should ever have attended to the point. It is whether many more plants growing on the interior dry plains are glaucous (that is are protected by a waxy secretion from which water rolls off like mercury) than in the humid districts near the coast?²

I remain dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Charles Darwin