Has studied Variation with interest.

Cannot quite follow CD on reversion and Pangenesis,

but is amazed at CD’s observations and method.

Comments on varieties of asses, kidney beans, and artichokes.

Discusses Hildebrand

and criticises Delpino.

Asks to borrow C. K. Sprengel’s Entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur [1793].

Botanists have no explanation of the case of Viola odorata and other showy flowers being sterile while inconspicuous ones bear seed.

Asks CD to sign enclosed certificate first, as he does not know T. H. Farrer personally. [On top part of first two pages of a letter to Hooker from H. C. Rothery about Farrer’s nomination for Linnean Society]

The Linnean Society Council wants CD to review two papers, with reference to their value for publication.

Will have Fritz Müller’s letter ["On the modification of the stamens in a species of Begonia", J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 11 (1871): 472–4] read at next Linnean Society meeting [read 3 June 1869].

Has given the seeds to Daniel Oliver.

Has heard that CD thinks GB is wrong on some points in his [Presidential] Address [to Linnean Society, see 6793]. Asks CD to point out where he is wrong.

Comments on CD’s observations on his address; clarifies his view of the importance of isolation, the effect of climate, the plants of S. Africa and Australia.

Asks GB to send him flowers of the two forms of Boronia pinnata, as he is republishing his papers on dimorphic plants [Forms of flowers].

Sends copy of Cross and self-fertilisation.

Has examined the specimens of Boronia pinnata. No evidence of two distinct bodies of individuals.

Asks whether extra-American species of Aegiphila are heterostyled.

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

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

GB’s note has given him more pleasure than his election to the French Academy.

CD pleased to be of use to GB. He remembers his own work on orchids with pleasure. Thinks GB will be able to improve CD’s terminology for orchids.

Asks GB to sign certificate for Francis Darwin [candidate for Royal Society].

Asks GB to vote for "a distant connexion of mine" at Athenaeum, and to mention this to Hooker.

Asks GB for help in clearing up his problems about Leguminosae, in connection with his "wild bit of speculation on the crossing of plants" [see Natural selection, p. 71].

Thanks GB for information on Leguminosae, especially about those with apetalous flowers and almost without anthers.

Thanks GB for information on apetalous flowers. "The whole order [Leguminosae] will remain my detestable enemies."

Thanks GB for his help on naturalised plants; comments on spreading of plants.

Wants to quote GB on the names of species and varieties of Silene on which C. F. von Gärtner experimented.

Thinks GB will be disappointed in his book [Natural selection]. "It will be grievously too hypothetical."

For his studies on fertility of crosses, asks GB to mark a list of pairs of Cucubalus as to whether they are varieties of the same species, or distinct species.

Thanks GB for his answers [to 2184], which were as explicit as he expected. Cucubalus viscosus and italicus are extremely sterile together; all other forms extremely fertile. Other instances of infertility found by Gärtner.