CD, ill and despondent about hostile reviews, is cheered by JDH’s account of Oxford battle, particularly by willingness of JDH and Huxley to fight for CD’s theory in public.

Reread JDH’s letter "with infinite pleasure".

Plans to visit Kew.

CD will visit Kew on way home from E. W. Lane’s hydropathy establishment.

Floral anatomy; pistil curvature and pistil movement. CD’s rule that bent pistils occur in "gangway" into nectaries.

The book JDH is planning, which he and CD discussed at Kew, should deal with plant reproduction.

Asa Gray’s anonymous review.

"Intensely interested" in orchid homologies; like a "game of chess".

CD’s reaction to review of the Origin [by Samuel Wilberforce] in Quarterly Review [see 2881].

Asa Gray’s articles in Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences [10 Apr 1860] excellent; considering asking Athenæum to reprint them.

Casual observations on Drosera.

Wants to know author of good review of Origin in London Review [& Wkly J. Polit. 1 (1860): 11–12, 32–3, 58–9].

Athenæum will reprint Gray’s discussion.