Dear Sir.

I beg to thank you for your note of the 23^rd. the contents of which will I know gratify the committee of our field club¹

I have much pleasure in sending you a curious form of Lilium candidum in which the buds instead of being developed as perfect flowers have expanded into a spike of leaves in color & texture resembling the perianth but in arrangement & form more like the stem leaves²

I fear I have nothing more either of facts or specimens in this way that would be new to you but will in future be on the look out. With regard to the direct deposition of coal it has often occurred to me as being rather singular that the fire clays & shales intervening between the seams of coal are as full of organic impressions as the coal itself & yet unaccompanied by carbonaceous matter³   I cannot help fancying that there must have been aggregation into seams after deposition similar to the aggregation of carbonate of Iron into thin strata & nodules—

yesterday evening I had the pleasure of being introduced to your friend M^r. Crotch who lectured at Bridgnorth on the “mutual relation of species” as a sort of popular exposition of the heads of the subjects treated of in your origin of species—⁴

Believe me to remain D^r Sir | yours very truly | George Maw

Charles Darwin Esq