Summary

Thanks for Hedysarum.

Pleasure in identifying field plants.

Summary

Detailed response to JDH’s critique of sea transport and continental connection theories. JDH’s claim that low plants are widely distributed fits both theories.

Species theory does not touch origin of life.

Summary

JDH criticises C. J. F. Bunbury’s paper on Madeira [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 1 (1857): 1–35].

Absence of Ophrys on Madeira suggests to JDH a sequence in creation of groups.

Why are flightless insects common in desert?

Australian endemism.

Summary

JDH to be appointed Assistant Director at Kew.

On where to publish seed-salting paper. Floating problem perhaps more important than germination.

Summary

When JDH goes to Germany, will he ask seed men if their marvellous true breeding lines are the result of selection.

Summary

Praise for JDH’s Flora Indica [J. D. Hooker and T. Thomson (1855)] from CD and C. J. F. Bunbury.

CD and J. S. Henslow dining in London. JDH invited.

Summary

Can AH give information about D. A. Godron, "De l’espèce et des races" [Mem. Soc. Sci. Lett. & Arts Nancy (1847): 182, 239–88]? CD unable to locate reference.

Summary

Has read a paper, presumably by JDH, using the Madeiran flora to argue against Forbes’s doctrine.

JDH asked how far CD will go in attributing common descent; he intends to show "the facts & arguments for & against the common descent of species of same genus; & then show how far the same arguments tell for or against forms, more & more widely different".

Summary

Has done New Zealand flora calculations. Results support CD’s theory of necessity of crossing. Trees tend to have separate sexes.

Summary

CD’s tabulation of colonists curious but explicable.

Working on Tasmanian flora; contemplating general essay on Australian distribution: Tasmania and Australia same alpine species; Swan River flora very peculiar and quite distinct from New South Wales.

Trying to establish new journal at Linnean.

Summary

Very impressed by Candolle’s book [Géographie botanique raisonnée (1855)]. Wants to recalculate his results.

CD’s pigeon fancy is getting on.

Summary

CD’s seed paper in Gardeners’ Chronicle [Collected papers 1: 255–8];

CD attacks Forbes’s "Atlantis".

Considers solutions to floating problem. Decides to test Azores seeds.

Photographs and drawings of CD.

Plant movement experiments with Hedysarum gyrans.

Summary

Asks JDH not to send H. C. Watson’s paper on Azores plants [Hooker’s Lond. J. Bot. 2 (1843): 1–9, 125–31, 394–408; 3 (1844): 582–617; 6 (1847): 380–97].

CD cannot endure trying all the Azorean seeds.

Summary

Australian Leguminosae problem: of 900 species not ten are common to southwest and southeast. No migration; hence either creation or variation.

Himalayan thistles: graded intermediates between large and small English species, "shakes species to their foundations". Similarity of CD’s and his views on species.

Summary

Seeds: worried they will turn into another barnacle job.

Studies plants colonising abandoned field.

Experiment on plant sleep movements.

CD objects to "Atlantis" because no evidence; does not affect species theory.

Summary

Sick of seed-salting.

Reading Candolle with great interest.

Summary

Seeds of two tropical island plants have floated for ten days.

Summary

CD experiments: sowing seeds in fields; "breaking" seeds’ constitution with coloured light; plant hybridisation. Compiling works on hybridism.

Respect for W. B. Carpenter.

Note on "nectar secreting" to Gardeners’ Chronicle [Collected papers 1: 258–9].

Summary

Thanks him for seeds used in immersion experiment.

Sends thanks to M. N. Blytt and says to tell him species names.

Mentions meeting Edward Sabine.

Summary

Debates aberrant species, e.g., Ornithorhynchus and Echidna, with JDH. CD argues they are result of extinction having removed intermediate links to allied forms.

Studying effects of disuse in wings of tame and wild ducks.

Tabulations showing that number of species in a genus is not correlated with number of genera in an order.