Request for climbing plants.

Requests climbing plants.

Asks that Oliver be told that he now does not care "how many tendrils he makes axial".

CD has proved common oxlip to be a hybrid of cowslip and primrose.

Reviewing literature on climbing plants, CD finds he has much new material.

W. H. Harvey claims evidence of saltation in a dandelion.

W. H. Harvey’s dandelion case worth publishing.

Suspects the uniform Primula elatior JDH referred to is a distinct species.

Scott’s paper on Passiflora shows variability of reproductive systems.

John Scott preparing to leave soon.

Ernst Haeckel writes that young German scientists are enthusiastic for natural selection.

Did JDH write the article in Natural History Review on trees not producing flowers ["Botanical lesson books", (1864): 355–69]?

Encourages Harvey to publish on his "disagreeable" monster plants.

Notes and queries on climbing plants for JDH [? given to him by CD at their meeting of 24 July 1864].

JDH’s visit stimulates CD’s interest in his own work. Encloses list of queries on climbing plants. [Missing]

Gives an extract from his notes on Marcgravia umbellata, an epiphyte that might be the plant that Bates refers to as matador.

Clarifies queries on climbing plants.

Scott would be very welcome at Down for a short visit.

Asks JDH to name a Bignonia.

Coming to end of climbing plants paper.

First draft of climbing plants paper is completed.

Nepenthes is a true climber.

Scott has visited Down.

Believes he gave JDH wrong address.

CD is not well enough to sit for Woolner.

Two Bignonia plants, which JDH does not distinguish as species, can be separated by differences in climbing and sensitivity behaviour.

Wants to write a non-quarrelsome reply to R. A. Kölliker ["Darwin’sche Schöpfungstheorie", Z. Wiss. Zool. 14 (1864): 174–86] in the Reader. Lyell opposes, but E. A. Darwin and Hensleigh Wedgwood support the idea.

CD continues to have trouble reconciling the Veitch’s names for Bignonia plants and Kew names.

Lyell and Falconer called on CD in London.

Pleased that Bentham is cautious about Naudin’s view of reversion. CD can show experimentally that crossing of races and species tends to bring back ancient characters.

Suggests Gärtner’s Bastarderzeugung [1849] be translated

and that Oliver review Scott’s Primula paper [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 8 (1865): 78–126] for a future issue of Natural History Review.

Is working on Variation.

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).

Huxley has answered Kölliker in Natural History Review [(1864): 566–80].

CD is correcting two of Scott’s papers; is convinced primrose and cowslip are two good species.

To Lyell’s chagrin, CD has come round again to A. C. Ramsay’s glacial theory.

On primrose and cowslip, CD maintains they are good species, notwithstanding Scott’s work.

CD defines species by power of remaining constant for a good long time and showing appreciable amount of difference from close species.