DO’s candidacy for Professorship of Botany [at University College, London].

Henrietta’s health is better.

Paper in Botanische Zeitung [T. Nitschke, "Über die Reizbarkeit der Blätter von Drosera rotundifolia", 18: 229–34, 237–45, 245–50] missed leading point that plants close longer over animal substances. Carbonate of ammonia works on Lemna and Euphorbia roots.

Congratulations on Professorship.

Homologies between Drosera and Dionaea. Carbonate of ammonia on roots. Wants W. H. Fitch to make drawings of Dionaea. Will copy minute structure of hairs from Trécul [see 2965].

One thirty-thousandth of a grain of human hair inflects a single Drosera hair. Astonished by his results so he is not publishing until next summer. [Not published until 1875, Insectivorous plants. See ch. 2 for observations on inflection.]

Wants to study effects of acids on live Dionaea. Oliver should do their anatomy. Corresponding with chemical physiologists about carbonate of ammonia on roots.

The plant CD’s father called "flycatcher" was not Asclepias.

Requests date of [C. S.] Rafinesque[-Schmaltz], New flora of North America, pt 1 [1836].

Praise for DO’s paper on Hamamelidaceae ["On Sycopis", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 83–9, read 15 Mar 1860]. Everything points to its being a "bankrupt" family.

Hydropathy at Malvern may take him from Drosera. Requests Dionaea and Cypripedium.

CD will publish on Primula [Collected papers 2: 45–63]. Will DO ask W. H. Fitch to make woodcuts of "pin" and "non-pin" primroses [i.e., long-styled and short-styled forms]? Encloses a sketch.

CD never dreamed primroses did not abound with DO; apologises for trouble and sends flowers.

Will repay DO for cost of Cypripedium and for the Dionaea, if any can be got.

Primula sibirica seems to be the only non-dimorphic species. Has made over one hundred Primula crosses.

Regrets Henslow’s illness.

Congratulations on DO’s marriage.

Thanks W. H. Fitch for drawing for the Primula paper. Death of experimental plants delays publication.

Requests that exotic species of Vinca, which never set seed at Kew, be fertilised by pressing a fine bristle between anthers as a moth would its proboscis.

Asks that Primula farinosa be sent.

Has put Drosera off while amusing himself with Primula and orchids.

Dionaea is prettily adapted to weight detection.

Asks DO to look for nectar in Stanhopea saccata labellum. CD’s theory predicts nectar should be present, but afraid there is none.

Requests that DO examine enclosed microscope slides of Acropera ovules, to confirm CD’s opinion that females are non-functional.

Can DO comment on disagreement between Robert Brown and John Lindley over the number of Acropera carpels?

O. Heer’s Atlantis theory vs CD’s hypothesis of a migration north during warm periods.

Trusts DO’s opinion on Acropera ovules.

Asks DO to identify enclosed Fumaria or Corydalis flower, with springing hood adaptation.

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.