Summary

Answers CD’s query on "bloom".

Summary

Thanks CD for Forms of flowers. Comments on the chapter on cleistogamic flowers; offers some corrections.

Summary

Thanks GB for corrections to chapter on cleistogamic flowers [Forms of flowers].

Asks for his opinion on "bloom"-producing plants in different climates.

Summary

Has sent Mimosa. The horticultural and physiological Mimosa is M. albida, which has a western distribution, rather than M. sensitiva as it is commonly called in error.

Summary

Asks for advice on how to care for previously sent species.

Occurrence of "bloom".

Summary

Solicits JDH and others at Kew for signatures to nomination of Francis Darwin for membership of Linnean Society.

Summary

Thanks for letter. CD now has all the seeds and information he requires.

Value and origin of amphicarpic habit.

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

Has been at work on Orchideae for Genera plantarum and has found CD’s Orchids wonderfully useful. Comments on some problems of botanical terminology.

Summary

Believes CD is in error in his notice on the scarcity of holly berries [Collected papers 2: 189–90] in asserting that holly is not a hermaphrodite.

Summary

Thanks AG for references about phyllotaxy

and information on marriage laws.

Has been looking for dimorphism in Phlox and Euonymus.

Has observed the irritability of tendrils of Echinocystis with great interest. Was also struck by the rotating movements of the leading shoots, which he proposes to investigate.

Summary

Discusses CD’s and Mrs Gray’s health.

Comments on some climbing plants.

Praises Wallace’s article applying natural selection to man ["The origin of human races", J. Anthropol. Soc. Lond. 2 (1864): clviii–clxxxvi].

Discusses the reported sterility of the flowers of Voandzeia and Amphicarpaea.

Feels the ending of slavery is worth the cost of the Civil War.

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

Thanks for WTT-D’s help.

Burying action of seeds.

"Bloom" on ferns.

Summary

CD’s curious observations on Trifolium resupinatum.

Describes a Maranta remarkable for its leaf asymmetry: its leaves are elliptical on one side and oblong on the other.

Summary

Remarks on the difference between the sexes in Restionaceae and other subjects – occasioned by reading the introduction [to Forms of flowers].