Has examined Leschenaultia and concludes the external viscid surfaces have nothing to do with the stigmatic surface. Agrees with CD’s style and nectary conclusions; accounts for their form and position in irregular flowers by describing floral development.

[Enclosed are some queries by CD with answers by JDH. Gives information on seed setting by Mucuna

and an opinion on the abruptness of N. and S. limits of plant ranges.]

John Scott’s paper [see 4332] read at Linnean Society; praised by George Bentham.

Himalayan pine in Macedonia.

JDH is in a quarrel with H. C. Watson.

Thanks JDH for his and Huxley’s countering of the false attack on George [Darwin] by Mivart. Encloses a note to Mivart on which he asks JDH’s opinion.

He has examined Hoya flowers with Bentham and Oliver, but they are not satisfied about the five processes alternating with the sepals. [See Forms of flowers, pp. 331–2.] Sends specimens of plants.

Babington’s surprise at JDH’s advocacy of Darwinian views at Norwich [BAAS meeting].

Criticism of the behaviour of the trustees of the British Museum [in the Challenger affair].

Questions on variation in nature: taxa varying in one region but not another. Variation between vs within species. Rarity of variation in important organs within a species. G. R. Waterhouse’s views on variation in highly developed organs, which CD relates to variation in rudimentary organs.

Asks for cases of obligate self-fertilising plants.

[CD annotation proposes using the Steudel Nomenclator botanicus (1821–4) to determine if variable species occur in genera with many species.]

Has been looking at separation of sexes in poplars.

Interested in reversion.

Does not understand all CD said on inheritance.

JDH now remembers that Origin was "published" some time before it was "distributed" and therefore appeared prior to his own essay [see also 2478].

Impossible to say whether some Dipterocarpaceae survived a cold period or have developed since.

Representative species may complicate tabulation of varieties.

Questions for Mr Anderson about horse colouring in Norway.

Has been writing an "audacious little discussion" to show that "organic beings are not perfect, only perfect enough to struggle with their competitors".

Finds CD’s results [of his survey of well-marked varieties from A. P. and Alphonse de Candolle’s Prodromus systematis naturalis regni vegetabilis (1824–73)] "very curious and suggestive". Thinks the Labiatae will present an obstacle to him as it is a very large and distinct order with well-defined species and genera. Would like to see him tackle more volumes of Candolle’s Prodromus, as his case can only be established by evidence from mundane plants. CD should beware of generalising from local species variability. A comparison of C. C. Babington’s and G. Bentham’s [British] Floras [Babington Manual of British botany (1843, 4th ed., 1856); Bentham Handbook of British flora (1858)] would be invaluable. Suggests CD write to Ferdinand Müller and Charles Moore in Australia. Moisture favouring extension of species is important for CD’s view.

Continued objections to methods and conclusions of CD’s survey.

Hermaphrodite trees are enough to "knock" CD down. Can JDH observe Eucalyptus to see whether pollen and stigma mature at same time?

JDH’s facts showing European plants are more common in southern Australia than in South America are disturbing because they are improbable on CD’s views of migration.

JDH said he would give examples of Australian forms that have migrated north along the mountains of the Malay Archipelago.

Replies at length to JDH’s worried reaction to his comments on lowness of Australian plants. CD distinguishes between "competitive highness", i.e., which fauna would be exterminated and which survive if two faunas were placed in competition, and ordinary "highness" of classification.

CD’s divergent series explains those anomalous plants that hover between what would otherwise be two species in a genus.

Inclined to see conifers as a sub-series of dicotyledons that developed in parallel to monocotyledons, but retained cryptogamic characters.

Mentions H. C. Watson’s view of variations.

Man has destroyed more species than he has created varieties.

Variations are centrifugal because the chances are a million to one that identity of form once lost will return.

In the human race, we find no reversion "that would lead us to confound a man with his ancestors".

Argument, based on geographical distribution and competition, for a mundane glacial period rather than cooling of one longitudinal belt at a time.

Wrote a "frightful screed" about aristocracy’s being a necessary consequence of natural selection, and then burnt it.

H. W. Bates is the only man "thinking out" natural selection to any purpose. "I think I have driven Bates back to Nat. Sel. as the only way of solving his difficulties."

HWB’s mimetic butterflies.

JDH wishes he had time to do the same thing with plants.

Owen and Huxley involved in a "contemptible" squabble in the Edinburgh newspapers.

Maximovitch reports Stellaria bulbifera is a Siberian form which never ripens its seeds.

Wife’s health improved by trip.

Heer’s collections convince JDH that Miocene vegetation was Himalayan, not American, as Heer supposed.

Zurich promises to be a good natural history school.

Review of Natural History Review in Parthenon [1 (1862): 373–5].

JDH explains why he cannot take Scott on at Kew.

John Tyndall cannot answer CD’s questions on glaciers. Edward Frankland’s ignorance. In JDH’s opinion, heaviness of winter snowfall is the greatest element in size of glaciers and this is a function of low mean temperature. Discusses descent of glaciers.

Pleased with news of BAAS meeting

and Scott’s possible position as Thomas Anderson’s curator.

Suggests Wallace is due for a Royal Medal.

Agrees with JDH’s criticism of Lyell’s address [see 4614].

Bentham’s Linnean Society address treats continuity of life in a vague non-natural sense.

Rereading his old MS [Natural selection] CD is impressed with work he had already done.

Writing Variation much harder than Climbing plants.

Encloses request to JDH to propose, or suggest on his behalf, that the Ray Society publish a translation of C. F. von Gärtner’s Versuche und Beobachtungen über die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich (1849).

Sabine’s address, printed in the Reader [4 (1864): 708–9], is good on the whole. Sends Huxley’s account of the row.

Praises John Ruskin’s eloquent reply to Jukes.

Will not be inclined to challenge Pangenesis.

Admits CD’s victory over JDH’s continental hypothesis (but will not give up Greenland).

Relation of variation to circumstances is shown by discovery of endemic St Helena umbellifer having same palm-like habit as an endemic Madeiran species.

Has completed Boott’s Carices [Illustrations of the genus Carex, pt 4 (1867)],

is printing W. H. Harvey’s work [Genera of South African plants, 2d ed. (1868)],

and is revising English edition of Alphonse de Candolle’s Laws of botanical nomenclature [trans. H. A. Weddell (1868)].

Arrangements at Kew. Gardener [John Smith] is very ill; Oliver reigns supreme in the Herbarium.

Oliver overlooked CD’s request about rutaceous flowers. Of precisely which points about the ovules does CD want illustrations?