Summary

Has not worked for six months due to illness.

Has been looking at climbing plants.

Hermann Crüger’s paper shows that CD was right about Catasetum pollination. Crüger’s account of pollination of Coryanthes "beats everything".

Summary

Has received EH’s Die Radiolarien. Drawings admirably executed. Had no idea such low animals could develop such beautiful structures.

Summary

Thanks for paper ["Über die Entwicklungstheorie Darwins", Amtl. Ber. Versamml. Dtsch. Naturforsch. Aerzte 38 (1863): 17–30]. Delighted EH confirms his views. Many in England afraid to express views openly.

Summary

Struck with corresponding positions of tendrils and flower-stalks in Passiflora. Sends [W. E. Darwin’s] dissection drawings of earliest stages. Infers that tendril is a modified flower peduncle.

Requests DO look at mode of climbing in Tecoma.

Summary

Thanks for information on Tecoma.

Cannot believe DO’s statement about Catasetum; is sure C. tridentatum sets seeds in its native country.

CD erred on Acropera, but how is it naturally fertilised?

Summary

John Scott has left Edinburgh Botanic Garden.

Asks JDH to ask Tyndall whether Frankland exaggerates the effect of snowfall on advance of European glaciers.

Huxley and Falconer squabble too much in public.

Summary

Eighty-two plants have germinated from earth on wounded partridge’s foot.

Summary

Proposes to support John Scott in research on relative fertility and self-incompatibility of plants. CD would pay him for a year or two but wants JDH to give him research facilities at Kew.

Summary

Sees difficulty of placing Scott at Kew. Suspects Balfour is prejudiced because Scott is a Darwinian.

CD’s former letter on Clematis [4403] blundered; work now being revised.

Summary

Enquires about the relationship of English grains to French milligrammes.

Summary

CD has thrown away injured partridge’s foot.

Summary

Discusses microscopic observation of pollen tubes.

Unable to exchange orchids because of his illness.

Summary

CD apologises for having asked JDH to help him with Scott and now seeks advice on how to break the news.

Summary

Regrets that JS has left the [Edinburgh] Botanic Garden and that [J. D.] Hooker is not in a position to secure a foreign appointment for him. Offers financial assistance on the grounds of science.

Has sent JS a copy of the Reader.

Summary

Thanks for Lectures on the elements of comparative anatomy [1864].

If Owen wrote article on "Oken" [Encyclopaedia Britannica, 8th ed.] and French work on archetype he never did a baser act [see ML 1: 246 n.].

Bad health lately.

Summary

The signatories warn the RHS that in offering prizes for collections of specimens of wild English plants, the Society will cause serious injury to varieties already threatened without any real promotion of scientific botany.

Summary

Thanks LA for Methods of study [1863].

Is gratified that he has not taken a personal dislike to CD, though he is strongly opposed to nearly everything CD has written.

Summary

CD has told Scott not to hope for help from JDH.

Health improving.

Hopes to write Lythrum paper soon.

Summary

Discusses DJB’s MS concerning the origin of species.

Summary

Another plea to take Scott on at Kew. Emma begs CD not to employ him at Down.

Has just received a long article on the Origin from D. J. Brown, an Edinburgh baker [see 4464].