Summary

CD continues very ill.

His only work is a little on tendrils and climbers. Asks whether all tendrils are modified leaves or whether some are modified stems.

Last number [Jan 1864?] of Natural History Review is best that has appeared.

Summary

Proposes to support John Scott in research on relative fertility and self-incompatibility of plants. CD would pay him for a year or two but wants JDH to give him research facilities at Kew.

Summary

CD’s pleasure at JDH’s willingness to help Scott find a position in India.

Naudin underrates contamination of his experiments by insects. Thus CD doubts Naudin’s results on rapidity and universality of reversion in hybrids.

Wallace’s paper on man [see 4494] reflects his genius, although CD does not fully agree with it.

Summary

John Scott has left Edinburgh Botanic Garden.

Asks JDH to ask Tyndall whether Frankland exaggerates the effect of snowfall on advance of European glaciers.

Huxley and Falconer squabble too much in public.

Summary

W. H. Harvey’s dandelion case worth publishing.

Suspects the uniform Primula elatior JDH referred to is a distinct species.

Scott’s paper on Passiflora shows variability of reproductive systems.

Summary

Sees difficulty of placing Scott at Kew. Suspects Balfour is prejudiced because Scott is a Darwinian.

CD’s former letter on Clematis [4403] blundered; work now being revised.

Summary

Request for plant.

Receipt of Oliver’s letter.

Summary

Huxley has answered Kölliker in Natural History Review [(1864): 566–80].

CD is correcting two of Scott’s papers; is convinced primrose and cowslip are two good species.

Summary

CD very ill.

Suspects F. Boott’s widow is illegitimate granddaughter of Erasmus Darwin.

CD, like JDH, has speculated that agrarian weeds have become adapted to cultivated ground. Suggests comparison with country of origin.

Wallace’s praise of Herbert Spencer’s Social statics baffles CD.

[Letter completed by E. A. Darwin.]

Summary

CD has told Scott not to hope for help from JDH.

Health improving.

Hopes to write Lythrum paper soon.

Summary

CD continues to have trouble reconciling the Veitch’s names for Bignonia plants and Kew names.

Lyell and Falconer called on CD in London.

Summary

CD finishing Lythrum paper [Collected papers 2: 106–31].

Pleased at Bates’s appointment

and Wallace’s paper.

Summary

CD has proved common oxlip to be a hybrid of cowslip and primrose.

Reviewing literature on climbing plants, CD finds he has much new material.

W. H. Harvey claims evidence of saltation in a dandelion.

Summary

Pleased with news of BAAS meeting

and Scott’s possible position as Thomas Anderson’s curator.

Suggests Wallace is due for a Royal Medal.

Agrees with JDH’s criticism of Lyell’s address [see 4614].

Bentham’s Linnean Society address treats continuity of life in a vague non-natural sense.

Rereading his old MS [Natural selection] CD is impressed with work he had already done.

Writing Variation much harder than Climbing plants.

Encloses request to JDH to propose, or suggest on his behalf, that the Ray Society publish a translation of C. F. von Gärtner’s Versuche und Beobachtungen über die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich (1849).

Summary

To Lyell’s chagrin, CD has come round again to A. C. Ramsay’s glacial theory.

On primrose and cowslip, CD maintains they are good species, notwithstanding Scott’s work.

CD defines species by power of remaining constant for a good long time and showing appreciable amount of difference from close species.

Summary

Requests climbing plants.

Asks that Oliver be told that he now does not care "how many tendrils he makes axial".

Summary

CD apologises for having asked JDH to help him with Scott and now seeks advice on how to break the news.

Summary

CD thinks JDH takes a hard view of Scott’s character, but will not argue further.

Leersia.

Working on homomorphic and heteromorphic crosses in Primula.

Summary

Request for plants.

CD’s continuing ill health.

Summary

CD is not well enough to sit for Woolner.

Two Bignonia plants, which JDH does not distinguish as species, can be separated by differences in climbing and sensitivity behaviour.

Wants to write a non-quarrelsome reply to R. A. Kölliker ["Darwin’sche Schöpfungstheorie", Z. Wiss. Zool. 14 (1864): 174–86] in the Reader. Lyell opposes, but E. A. Darwin and Hensleigh Wedgwood support the idea.