Thanks GB for arranging for his paper ["Two forms of Primula", Collected papers 2: 45–63] and for his photograph.

CD sends thanks for many valuable dried specimens [of orchids]. Has been promised Catasetum and some Dendrobium by Mr Rucker; has written also to Lady Dorothy [Nevill].

Lady Dorothy [Nevill] has written very obligingly and sent a lot of orchids.

Requests more precise details about Oxalis, to which GB referred in his remarks on Primula.

Would prefer to have Primula paper published in the Linnean Society’s Journal rather than Transactions.

Thanks GB for valuable letter [3331].

Will follow his suggestion about violets.

Discusses differences between Thymus and Primula.

Thanks JL for a flower of Bolbophyllum, a genus that puzzles him.

Recent work has convinced him a number of orchids are male. Points out that JL [in The vegetable kingdom (1846), pp. 177–8] "accidentally misquoted" R. H. Schomburgk on this point.

Delayed thanking JL for two notes until he heard from Hooker about Acropera luteola; had no idea A. luteola was not a well-known name.

Cites his reasons for identifying A. loddigesii as male; hopes for a Gongora flower from Hooker which, JL suggested, may be the female.

Thanks JL for information about Acropera luteola.

Also thanks for the Gongora; cannot avoid the impression it is male.

Asks GB’s help to clear up discrepancies between his and John Lindley’s observations on pollination of Melastomataceae.

Returns Asa Gray’s letter. Disappointed with Gray. Comments on America. British–American relations.

Will try to come to Linnean Society to read his paper, but has been "extra headachy". Fears his paper ["Sexual forms of Catasetum", Collected papers 2: 63–70] will not be worth Lindley’s attendance.

Thanks JL for review [of Orchids, Gard. Chron. (1862): 789–90, 863]; CD published almost by accident, having been led on in part by encouragement from JL.

Asks for reference to GB’s summary of Targioni-Tozzetti’s book ["Historical notes on the introduction of various plants into the agriculture and horticulture of Tuscany: a summary of a work entitled Cenni storici sulla introduzione di varie piante nell agricultura ed orticultura Toscana by Dr Antonio Targioni-Tozzetti, Florence, 1850", J. Hortic. Soc. Lond. 9 (1855): 133–81]. [See Variation, 1st ed., 1: 306 n.]

Sends Asa Gray letter: "nearly as mad as ever in our English eyes".

Bates’s paper is admirable. The act of segregation of varieties into species was never so plainly brought forth.

CD is a little sorry that his present work is leading him to believe rather more in the direct action of physical conditions. Regrets it because it lessens the glory of natural selection and is so confoundedly doubtful.

JDH laid too much stress on importance of crossing with respect to origin of species; but certainly it is important in keeping forms stable.

If only Owen could be excluded from Council of Royal Society Falconer would be good to put in. CD must come down to London to see what he can do.

Falconer’s article in Journal of the Geological Society [18 (1862): 348–69] shows him coming round on permanence of species, but he does not like natural selection.

Sends Lythrum salicaria diagram.

Sends GB a selection of reviews of the Origin from his collection of about 90, with his opinion of some of them.

Disagrees with GB when he says he is not up to treating the whole subject [the present state of the species question]. He is especially equipped to handle the "great subject of affinities in relation to descent and independent creation".

Natural selection implies that a form remains unaltered unless an alteration is to its benefit. This is not inconsistent with some forms remaining stable for long periods. Natural selection must at present be grounded entirely on general considerations. Of details we are still greatly ignorant.

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".

Includes comments about George Bentham’s anniversary address to the Linnean Society with particular notice of the favourable attention to Darwin, except for Natural Selection, and to AG’s essay in the Atlantic Monthly.

He defends [W. B.] Carpenter and [Jeffries] Wyman against [Richard] Owen.

Gossip about scientific honours and other matters.