Thanks JDH for extract on Hedychium pollination; it shows CD’s prior interpretation was incorrect.

JDH asks Thiselton-Dyer if the proof of his 'address' has been sent to the publisher, Griffith. JDH describes his present location, Alderley Grange in Wotton under Edge, as 'a lovely place'. Whilst there he is working on the Royal Society address & the 'Primer' [refers to the series of 'Science Primer' books published by Macmillan, for which Hooker wrote the volume entitled BOTANY (1876)]. The following week JDH will go to Bewdley, then to stay with [George] Maw at Broseley, Shropshire, before returning to Kew. In a post script JDH adds that he has read & enjoyed CRUISE ON WHEELS [by Charles Allston Collis] & is now reading [George Eliot's] SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE, the best thing he has read in years, either fact or fiction. He specifically mentions the story JANET'S REPENTANCE.

Asks JDH for leaves of Byblis and Roridula to examine, and D. Oliver for an anomalous species of Utricularia.

Oliver will attend to his letter.

Tells of discovery and rediscovery of Aldrovanda.

Asks what CD thinks of "old Pritchard’s discourse" [C. Pritchard, Natural science and natural religion (1874)]. Does not affect evolution at all. It does affect the rather unprofitable doctrine of materialism.

His plans for the Royal Society Presidential Address.

No summary available.