GB’s address [Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (1863): xi–xxix] pleased him as much as Lyell’s book [Antiquity of man] disappointed him on species question. GB has done a "real good turn to the right side".

Asks for names of plants mentioned in an article in Natural History Review ["South European Floras", n.s. 4 (1864): 369–84] so he can get seeds.

Also would like specimens of the two forms of Aegiphila.

Thanks GB for specimens [of Aegiphila] and his information.

Asks GB to consider whether it is necessary for the Linnean Society to be so strict about the number of books members may borrow.

His memory deceived him about GB’s statement [on propagation of thistles].

Invites GB and wife to luncheon.

Is not surprised that GB cannot digest Pangenesis, but it has been an immense relief to CD in tying together large classes of facts.

Sends names of men writing on crossing of plants. Criticises some French observations. Praises Hildebrand and Federico Delpino.

Sends pamphlets.

CD is experimenting on a large scale on difference in plants raised from self-fertilised and crossed seeds.

F. Hildebrand has produced a graft-hybrid which seems to lend important support to Pangenesis.

Sends Ernst Haeckel’s [Generelle] Morphologie [1866] and C. K. Sprengel’s book [Entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur (1793)].

A. Gaudry and L. Rütimeyer have declared in favour of CD’s views.

Expresses thanks and pleasure at what GB has said about his book [Variation] in GB’s [Presidential] Address [to the Linnean Society, 1868, Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (1868): lvii–c]. "What you say about Pangenesis quite satisfies me".

CD discussed "bud-variation" to show that it was an error to believe all variability is due to sexual generation.

Sends a letter (and seeds) from Fritz Müller about a strange monstrous form of Begonia found wild in Brazil. Asks GB whether it is worth communicating to Linnean Society.

CD finds GB’s address interesting; assures him that he has never said GB was wrong on any point, but that there were differences between them, which he now thinks are not great.

Comments on specific parts of the address [see 6793]: colonisation, variability of large and small genera, descent from a single parent or pair of parents, rapid multiplication and change in species, isolation.

Asks GB to support the election of CD’s nephew, Henry Parker, to the Athenaeum Club.

Thanks GB for his "Report on [the recent progress and present state of] systematic botany" [Rep. BAAS (1874): 27–54] and for the way in which he refers to CD’s book.

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].