Summary

Observations on Platanthera.

Possibility of trimorphism in Mertensia.

Summary

JS should be proud of his paper ["Nature of the fern-spore", Edinburgh New. Philos. J. 2d ser. 16 (1862): 209–27].

CD has just found that JS’s observations on the confluence of two sexes causing variability were independently confirmed by Huxley.

CD has always suspected a fundamental difference between buds and ovules.

Asks for examples of "bud-variation" or "sports".

Asks JS to test germination of pollen on rostellum of Laelia.

Offers JS money for experimental supplies, e.g., netting, to keep insects out of flowers.

Encloses an outline of crossing experiments with Lythraceae, Primula, Pelargonium, and others, which he feels would be valuable.

Note on melastomids.

Summary

Floral structure of Melastoma. Asks AG to observe position of pistils in lately-opened flowers of different plants.

Summary

Describes floral anatomy of a Catasetum sent by DO.

Has gone on from orchids to studying insect agency in Pelargonium.

His doubts on the worth of publishing Orchids.

Summary

JDH admits he wrote Gardeners’ Chronicle and Natural History Review articles on orchids [Gard. Chron. (1862): 789–90, 863, 910; Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 2 (1862): 371–6].

JDH’s objections to CD’s idea of how Greenland was repopulated. Temperate Greenland has as Arctic a flora as Arctic Greenland – a fact of astounding force. Why should certain Scandinavian species be absent? Migration by sea-currents can no more account for the present distribution in Greenland than can special creation.

Summary

Thinks "ozonised fluid" is a pure solution of permanganate of soda. Sends dosage.

Summary

Did CD lend AM a pamphlet on cave insects by S. Scudder ["On the genus Raphidophora", Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist. 8 (1861–2): 6–14]? CD much wants it and remembers lending it to someone.

Summary

Thanks WDF for interesting letter about turkeys. Would be grateful for information on fertility of the hybrids.

Summary

Continues breeding guinea-pigs to test effects of warmth on gestation period. Concludes period is ten weeks and warmth has no influence. Offers CD the specimens.

Awaits Variation.

Summary

Household problems: wife’s health, visitors to Kew.

Will go to sale of J. C. Ross’s effects looking for glacial and Kerguelen Land works not at British Museum.

Summary

Thinks JDH is a bit hard on Asa Gray.

Bates’s letter is that of a true thinker. Asks to see JDH’s to Bates. Point raised in it is most difficult. "There is one clear line of distinction; – when many parts of structure as in woodpecker show distinct adaptation to external bodies, it is preposterous to attribute them to effect of climate etc. – but when a single point, alone, as a hooked seed, it is conceivable that it may thus have arisen." His study of orchids shows nearly all parts of the flower co-adapted for fertilisation by insects and therefore the result of natural selection. Mormodes ignea "is a prodigy of adaptation".

Summary

Sends observations on Valeriana officinalis.

Summary

Would like to go to Cambridge [for BAAS meeting]. Reminisces about his student days.

Pleased that WDF likes his book [Orchids]. At one time CD agreed with Lyell that he was an ass to publish it.

Working on dimorphism and sensibility of other plants.

Summary

Extreme interest in MS of HF’s paper on the American fossil elephant [Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 3 (1863): 43–114].

Pleased HF does not believe in immutable species. Significance of proboscidean group verging towards extinction. Comments on natural selection preserving type despite variability. Natural selection solves problem of how every part of each creature has become adapted.

Summary

Thanks for JDH’s letter [3725].

Has become interested in experimenting on Drosera.

Observations on the ovaria of Cruciferae.

Summary

Is pleased that AdeC is interested in the Primula case ["Dimorphic condition of Primula", Collected papers 2: 45–63]. Is pursuing analogous experiments on other plants and on seedlings raised from the unions.

CD’s "large work" progresses slowly owing to ill health and his work on Orchids.

CD is not surprised that AdeC is unwilling to admit natural selection – "the subject hardly admits of direct proof or evidence. It will be believed in only by those who think that it connects & partly explains several large classes of facts".

Hopes AdeC will publish on Quercus

and rejoices that he intends to return to the study of geographical distribution. No one can claim to have read AdeC’s truly great work on that subject [Géographie botanique (1855)] with more care than CD.

Summary

G. B. Wollaston [in "British Orchideae", Phytologist n.s. 1 (1855–6): 225–7] says Ophrys arachnites is a hybrid, which contradicts CD, who says it is a new species.

Summary

Reports on a bird, offspring of a male mule between a canary and greenfinch, and a hen canary.

Family news.

Summary

Criticises style of JS’s fern paper [Edinburgh New Philos. J. 2d ser. 16 (1862): 209–27].

JS’s remark on "the two sexes counteracting variability in the product of the one" is new to CD.

Does the female [fern?] plant always produce female by parthenogenesis?

They seem to work on same subjects; CD has much material on Drosera.

Does not understand JS’s objections to natural selection.

Offers to suggest experiments.

Summary

Illness of his son [Leonard]. Has done no work for weeks.

JDH’s hybrid orchids are interesting; CD is surprised many hybrids are not produced.

George [Darwin] caught a moth sucking Gymnadenia conopsea with a pollen-mass of Habenaria bifolia sticking to it.