My dear Father,

Here are some tubes Hawksley sent to see whether they wd do, they look pretty good tho’ the walls are thick. They draw them out over flame & have to guess the right moment to stop pulling so it is impossible to get any size accurately except by making a lot & picking some out. The sample quills are strung on a bit of red strap with the tubes²

I have had 2 days hard work at Kew, very successfully, Lynch the head foreman gathers the leaves & brings them in to me all with the names marked.³ It would be an endless job for me to hunt out where each plant is & I should think he is trustworthy   I have impressed on him the awful consequences of mistakes   I frightened him so by asking whether he was sure that 2 plants were rightly named that he took them to the Herbarium & they were right. I have been rather horrified at finding out mistakes in the number of stomata given in my books, I was led to look at the stomata myself by seeing how badly they suited Sachs theory.⁴ One Broussonettia was given as having all its stomata above & I found it was an ordinary tree-leaf wetting perfectly above & hairy underneath, & I found very few st above & lots on the undersurface.⁵ Vicia sativa was given as no stomata above, & as the bloom is only on the upper side I looked at stomata & found far more above than below.⁶ I sent the plant to the Herbarium to make sure. Some mistake may be misprints such as the under side stoma being put in upper side column, or wrong figure &c. Or the Germans & I may be looking at different plants. I have done 3 or 4 sp of primula & they suit Sachs theory well

P. marginata has most bloom above & stomata ^{16 above/1 below}

P. capitata exactly vice versâ in both bloom & stomata. The meal of primulæ must be very bad protection as it washes off on dipping the leaf in water.⁷ I am not sure it wouldn’t pay better to only count stomata myself but it is so awfully slow compared to using other peoples observations.

Horace was here to dinner on Tuesday & went on to Cambr same night & comes he tomorrow to see W^m off   H. seemed very well & jolly. Uncle Ras is pretty well.⁸ I dont see much of him, I leave here 7·45 am & get back 6·45 pm. Hooker was away when I called. Dyers have gone⁹

I am glad to here ubbadubba¹⁰ is jolly | Yrs affec | F D

After all I will send glass tubes separate from this letter