Summary

Has told publisher to send a copy of Insectivorous plants.

Summary

Thanks MTM for his excellent review [of Insectivorous plants]

and for his trouble about the gooseberry.

Summary

Discusses views of [Alexander James] Maule on potatoes.

Discusses graft-hybrids.

Summary

Reports on the flowering and growth of a branch of Echeveria stolonifera.

Summary

Thanks for note. CD had had misgivings about Chatin but had assumed he was trustworthy [see Movement in plants, p. 389].

Summary

Much interested in MTM’s lecture at Royal Institution ["On the relation between the abnormal and normal formations in plants", Notes Proc. R. Inst. G. B. 3 (1860): 223–7].

Asks for information about crossing of varieties of peas. Describes his own experimental results: "the offspring out of the same pod, instead of being intermediate, was very nearly like the two pure parents; yet in one, there was a trace of the cross & the next generation showed still more plainly their mongrel origins".

Summary

Discusses crosses in sweetpeas and the difference between monstrosities and slight variations. Discusses peloric flowers.

Thanks for correction about furze.

Summary

Obliged for MTM’s ["Vegetable morphology", Br. & Foreign Med.-Chir. Rev. 29 (1862): 202–18].

Summary

CD has been experimenting on the fertility of peloric flowers, with the forlorn hope of illustrating sterility of hybrids; seeks further plants or seeds.

Summary

CD grateful to have had the distinction of the two sorts of peloria pointed out to him.

His very sick son rallied; is out of danger, thanks to port wine.

Summary

Comments on MTM’s article ["On the existence of two forms of peloria", Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 3 (1863): 258–62]. Cites interesting case of peloric flower.

Summary

Sends two spikes of Corydalis.

Admits he may have drawn false inference from MTM’s division of peloria into two classes.

Summary

CD sends thanks for MTM’s note on monsters. Adds comment on MTM’s point that some species become monstrous more frequently than others.

Summary

Glad to hear of MTM’s papers [? "On a peloria and semidouble flower of Ophrys aranifera, Huds.", J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 8 (1865): 207–11 and "Observations on the morphology and anatomy of the genus Restio, Linn.", J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 8 (1865): 211–55].

CD doubts the value, for origin of species, of parallels between peloria in "distinct groups".

Gärtner proved the stigma can select its own pollen from a mixture of foreign pollens. But much evidence shows varieties of same species are prepotent over a plant’s own pollen.

MTM’s father [William] believes that variation goes on for a long time once it has commenced.

Summary

Discusses the orchid specimens received from MTM. Remarks on the self-sterility of Cypripedium and other orchids.

Summary

Sends his niece’s [Lucy Wedgwood] observations on worms, vouches for her accuracy, and suggests the piece be inserted in Gardeners’ Chronicle [see "Worms", Gard. Chron. (1868): 324].

Adds his thanks for a "very kind review" of his book [Variation, Gard. Chron. (1868): 124].

Summary

Thanks correspondent for information about a dog.

Summary

Sends an article for insertion in Gardeners’ Chronicle.

Suggests sending a proof ‘as my hand-writing is so bad’.

Summary

CD refuses an interview because of a severe headache, but wishes all success to the Gardeners’ Chronicle.

Summary

Discusses flower structures of the hop.