On Vanilla.

Asks JDH to observe whether he has both long- and short-styled form of Menyanthes

and whether he has "Saxifrages with long hairs glandular at the tip".

The Linnean Society session made him vomit all night. Fears he must give up trying to read papers or speak. "It is a horrid bore. I can do nothing like other people."

DO’s observations on polymorphism in Primula and Campanula. CD recognises three classes of dimorphism, as in Primula, Thymus, and Campanula and violets.

DO’s Campanula paper and Royal Institution lecture [Not. Proc. R. Inst. G. B. 3 (1858–62): 431–3].

CD’s interest in Fumariaceae from A. Gray’s comments on "selfing".

Bees bite holes in flowers when same species grows in high density.

Organisation of CD’s notes.

Requests Oxalis acetosella, which he suspects is dimorphic.

Thanks for Oxalis. Only experimentation will show whether disproportion of long- to short-styled flowers is a functional dimorphism.

Case of aestival flowers is very curious.

Thanks WED for eyeglass.

Reports on health of Horace and family matters.

Has finished Orchids.

Encourages DO to publish his paper and put his name to it. [Paper apparently not published.] Concurs with his views on primordial nature of hermaphroditism.

Thanks correspondent for his excellent review [of French edition of Origin (1862)], which he feels will help the spread of his views in France.