To J. D. Hooker [30 and 31 December 1861]¹

[Down]

Monday Evening

Will you ask M^r Gower to send me 2 or 3 flowers of Heterocentrum Mexicanum mentioned in Gardeners Chronicle in enclosed envelope,—as I am trying experiments of H. roseum, & the sight of another species might be of much use to me.—²

Ever yours | C. Darwin

if any other Melastomad with 8 anthers is in flower I sh^d be glad to see it.— Tuesday Morning Many thanks for note & foreign letter.—³ I am bad today with 2 of my Boys bad—⁴ But I shall indulge myself with a note to you some day soon.—

I should rather like to see Eulophia, but if you are not well or very busy do not send it—⁵ M^r G. could send the Heterocentron & cause you no trouble—

Footnotes

1

Dated by the relationship to the letter from J. D. Hooker, [29 December 1861]. In 1861, 30 December fell on a Monday.

2

William Hugh Gower was a foreman at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. A notice in the Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, 28 December 1861, pp. 1137–8, recommended Heterocentron mexicanum as a good winter plant. CD was investigating dimorphism in Heterocentron (see letter to J. D. Hooker, 17 November [1861]).

3

See letter from J. D. Hooker, [29 December 1861]. The ‘foreign letter’ has not been found; it is possible that it was from Charles Victor Naudin (see letter from J. D. Hooker, [29 December 1861], CD annotations).

4

Emma Darwin recorded in her diary on 30 December 1861 that Francis and Horace Darwin were ‘feverish’.

5

See letter from J. D. Hooker, [29 December 1861].