Summary

Thanks AE for his book [Estudios sobre la flora y fauna de Venezuela (1877)].

Asks whether glaucous plants in Venezuela are more common in drier areas.

Summary

High praise for Island life; ARW’s "best book". Encloses notes of comments and criticism. Hooker pleased by dedication.

Summary

Describes his talk with Julius von Sachs about canary-grass.

Summary

Hooker, just returned from U. S., says Pinus nordmanniana leaves are spread horizontally in the morning and rise during the day.

Summary

CD and Frank think they have proved that function of plant sleep is to protect leaves from injury by chilling radiation. Requests plants for experiment to determine whether underside of leaf is hardier than upper.

Summary

Is glad that Hooker will sign memorial for Wallace’s pension. Had thought it hopeless because Hooker objected to ARW’s spiritualism and his bet on the sphericity of the globe.

Summary

Movements in cotyledons; outlines tracing technique. [A tracing of movements of red cabbage cotyledon enclosed.]

Summary

Asks WED to observe whether worms consistently draw acacia leaves into their burrows with a particular end first.

Will soon know whether he will need worm-castings from Beaulieu.

Summary

Thanks for bananas.

Will rejoice when Joseph Dalton Hooker is no longer burdened by his Royal Society duties.

Summary

Must stop work on "bloom" and leaf movements if he is ever to get anything published on Drosera, etc.

Sends thanks for seeds. Encloses memorandum in case WTT-D wishes to communicate information to Royal Horticultural Society. Has not time to prepare article.

Discusses condition of plants borrowed from Kew.

Summary

Has received CD’s book [Forms of flowers]; thanks him for the compliment of the dedication.

Summary

FD has sent proofs; nutating of Ricinus; Horace Darwin and the wormograph.

Summary

Frank asked to summarise work with CD for use in JDH’s Royal Society address.

Work with A. Gray shows Colorado plants closer to Altai than to E. or W. America.

Work with J. Ball shows Moroccan plants very distinct from nearby Canaries.

JDH on Royal Commission to Paris Exhibition.

Summary

JDH recounts discussion at Royal Society over Günther’s paper on distribution and affinities of gigantic tortoises ["Description of the living and extinct races of gigantic land-tortoises, Parts III and IV", Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 25 (1876–7): 506–7]. Huxley suggests they are Miocene relics.

Royal Society will publish Frank’s Dipsacus paper [but see 10971 and 11073].

Thiselton-Dyer will review Cross and self-fertilisation.

Summary

Germination of Megarrhiza. AG’s observations at variance with CD’s.

Summary

On new [6th] edition of the Origin; comments on additions.

Owen’s attitude toward evolution.

Summary

Congratulations on Erasmus Darwin; likes CD’s part better than Ernst Krause’s.

Received false notice of Asa Gray’s death.

Gray and JDH engaged in comparing widely separated but floristically similar regions.

Summary

Directs CD where to find tools in his room. Has been looking at agave and aloe flowers. Thanks family for their letters.

Summary

Thanks for AG’s trouble about the seeds. Is curious to see their germination and the early seedling growth.

Asks for cotton seeds, as he observes odd movements of the cotyledon.

Summary

Sends MS notes on intercrossing.

Describes different reactions of rabbits and guinea-pigs to stinging nettles.

Has made a number of grafts at Kew.

Encloses notes on natural selection; discussion of factors mitigating the swamping influence of intercrossing on incipient variations.