Summary

The Director-General of the Army Medical Department [J. B. Gibson] agrees to have CD’s circular distributed to Army surgeons in India and the West Indies, with reply being voluntary. [See Descent 1: 244–5 n.]

Summary

Requests Linum, for dimorphism study.

Reviewer of Orchids [Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 2 (1862): 371–6]is correct about the organisation of the book; he wonders who the reviewer is.

Summary

Relates death of H. G. Bronn.

Discusses publication of German edition of Orchids [1862].

Summary

Will see to Masdevallia and Bonatea.

Domestic matters.

Lyell’s health.

CD’s eczema.

Hopes CD will solve the mystery of Melastoma.

Summary

Thanks for paper and references on variations [missing].

Regrets HWB’s trouble about artists, etc., saying such trouble is a law of nature.

Asks whether HWB has heard of starving Indians who are forced to cook in different ways, and eat new things.

Summary

Asks for any authentic cases of "sports", which CD calls "bud-variations". Flowers introduced from warmer temperate regions are said to be particularly apt to sport in this way.

CD now has proof that Cinchona is dimorphic and that some dimorphic plants are absolutely sterile with their own-form pollen.

Asks GHKT to examine or send pollen specimens of two Ceylon genera.

Summary

Acknowledges receipt of £240 7s. 9d.

Hopes to meet JH at Erasmus Alvey Darwin’s house in London on Friday 6 June.

Summary

Requests reference to Jules Planchon’s monograph on Linum [Lond. J. Bot. 6 (1847): 588–603; 7 (1848): 165–86, 473–501, 507–28].

Sends list of seeds, including Oxalis, Boraginaceae especially Alkanna.

Asa Gray says JDH wrote reviews of Orchids in Gardeners’ Chronicle.

His experiments amuse him after dull day’s work on vegetables and fruit-trees.

Leschenaultia formosa has exterior stigma, thus eminently requiring insect aid, and thus ensuring crossing almost inevitably.

Asks whether Samuel Haughton at Dublin who made important medical discovery could be the same who reviewed Origin so hostilely [in Nat. Hist. Rev. 7 (1860): 23–32]; if so, he can sneer at and abuse CD to his heart’s content.

Asa Gray as rabid as ever [on Civil War].

Summary

Is observing Gymnadenia tridentata.

Has received six copies of Orchids.

Summary

Asa Gray has a self-fertilising Platanthera, like the bee orchid. CD believes problem of the latter will some day be explained. Speculates [Ophrys] arachnites may be crossing form and bee orchid self-fertilising form of the same species.

Cytisus adami is a puzzle.

Pleased if DO will review Orchids [Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 2 (1862): 371–6] .

His review of Primula paper was capital. [Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 2 (1862): 235–43].

Requests peloric plants.

Summary

JDH castigates the Americans after the Trent affair. The value of an aristocracy. How will CD answer Asa Gray’s letter?

His "remarkable plant" [Welwitschia mirabilis] exhibited at Linnean Society.

Genera plantarum is in press.

Summary

Trying to persuade CD to visit JL.

Summary

WED has been collecting Lythrum plants. Numerical proportions of the three forms.

Summary

L. C. Treviranus inclined to translate Orchids, but "unfortunately" HGB has already done it. Book’s discussion of plant sexuality important for zoology as well as botany.

Origin is in press. Attaches a list of "quelques petites difficultées" encountered in his translation.

Summary

Praises Orchids.

He has finished his work on Quercus.

H. Lecoq has worked on hybridism,

and P. Duchartre on orchid polymorphism.

Summary

Thanks for orchids and other flowers.

Will send photograph.

Summary

Thanks JL for review [of Orchids, Gard. Chron. (1862): 789–90, 863]; CD published almost by accident, having been led on in part by encouragement from JL.

Summary

Discusses insects of south temperate S. America and New Zealand, especially with respect to the distribution and origin of Chilean Carabi, and has sent for a German monograph to learn about the eleven species he has found.

He refers to Chilean poverty in butterflies; scanty New Zealand insect fauna.

An analysis of south temperate insects is desirable, but the small English collections make him afraid to undertake it.

Summary

It would be a pleasure to see "the first enunciator of the theory of Natural Selection" but his health makes it impossible. Hopes to come to London soon and would like to arrange an interview with PM if he is staying more than a week.

Summary

Forwards carbonate of ammonia and gelatine free of chlorine.