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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Sends specimens of Boronia.

Discusses the section on diclinous trees and herbs in CD’s new book [Cross and self-fertilisation, pp. 411–13]. CD’s theory that diclinism preceded hermaphroditism seems confirmed.

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

Asks whether extra-American species of Aegiphila are heterostyled.

Believes Aegiphila to be exclusively American.

Contrasts fertilisation of Australian Acacia with Brazilian Mimosa.

Thanks CD for Forms of flowers. Comments on the chapter on cleistogamic flowers; offers some corrections.

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

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

Answers CD’s query on "bloom".