Summary

Answers CD’s query on "bloom".

Summary

Asks AG not to send his rare specimens [of Leucosmia].

Is glad of the notice about black pigs.

Has great faith in Jeffries Wyman;

thinks A. R. Wallace founds his speculation on a feeble basis.

Summary

Believes Aegiphila to be exclusively American.

Contrasts fertilisation of Australian Acacia with Brazilian Mimosa.

Summary

John Scott is gratified at Bentham’s proposal that he become an associate of the Linnean Society.

Summary

Believes Lythrum is trimorphic. Asks AG for seeds of plants he suspects are polymorphic.

Summary

Returns a paper which he has looked over.

Cannot name the scrap of Strychnos with any certainty.

Summary

CD complains of discomfort, but has not the strength for a project that would let him forget it.

Summary

Does not think so poorly of Nature as JDH does, by any means; fears Popular Science Review is rather ephemeral but more durable than Nature.

The case of the charlock.

Summary

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

Summary

Comments on CD’s observations on his address; clarifies his view of the importance of isolation, the effect of climate, the plants of S. Africa and Australia.

Summary

Has sent JDH’s Genera plantarum to Fritz Müller who finds it useful and offers to supply JDH with Brazilian plants.

Summary

Thanks for Francis Darwin’s Dipsacus paper.

Dislikes the word "protoplasm", because improved microscopes will uncover more fundamental substances. Also "plasma" merely hides the ignorance of modern chemists.

Expects waxy, glaucous-leaved plants to be most frequent in dry temperate climates.

Summary

Lyell, de facto, first to stress importance of geological changes for geographical distribution.

Asa Gray has given CD too much credit for theories of geographical distribution.

Reaction to hostile criticism

and debt to Lyell, Huxley, JDH, and W. B. Carpenter.

Summary

Wants plants with two sets of anthers of different colours. Fritz Müller letter [13041a] has made him wish to renew experiments and observations carried out 20 years ago.

Summary

JDH and Oliver impressed with CD’s observations on gyratory motion of plants.

CD pleased with Bentham’s Linnean Society address on the reception of Darwinism [J. Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. 7 (1863): xi–xxix].

JDH’s social "dogma": "Brains x Beauty = Breeding + wealth".

[Dated 9 June by JDH.]

Summary

Encourages CD’s work in vegetable physiology.

Ascending the Lebanon JDH noted limits of plant distribution as CD requested: lower limits of a genus sharper than upper. Sharpness of boundaries related to a plant’s moisture requirement.

Impressed by "sporadic" distribution at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris.

Summary

Describes experiments designed to produce graft-hybrid. Has achieved adhesion in great majority of experiments. Too early to tell what ultimate success will be.

Summary

At 63 JDH still works hard to support his family. Many friends have died. Memories of times past spent with CD lift his pessimism.

Summary

[Notes on conversations with J. D. Hooker.] Geographical distribution; diffusion and distribution of species. Island and mountain floras; means of migration (high-roads, icebergs).

Summary

Thinks JDH would be wise not to touch on Pangenesis; it has very few friends. Bentham is doubtful, Carus against, and Alphonse de Candolle likes it least in the book. CD still convinced it will be hereafter looked on as "best hypothesis of generation inheritance & development". If JDH means to cut up Pangenesis he has no word to say in opposition.