Asks JDH to look at stigma of Leschenaultia biloba; it seems certain there is no stigma within the bud. Case would be important.

Singular case of peculiar structure now remodified into the functional condition of a Campanula.

JBI asks Stephens to ask CD to send particulars of Tegetmeier’s beehives.

Household problems – stolen silver, maids. His house for some months has had reputation for being not a little disreputable.

On Cameroon plants.

About Quiz and [Horace Darwin’s] health.

Asks whether CD has tried W. B. Tegetmeier’s beehives.

Glad to receive CD’s pat on back for address.

Wants to know what CD thinks of the argument on geological contemporaneity.

On his poor health.

Wanted to talk with CD about the astonishing new Pliocene fossil discoveries in North America reported by Leidy. One horse fossil’s dentition, if it could be believed, would be of great interest to CD’s views.

Hooker has written about WED’s going to Kew.

Will try to call tomorrow. What HF tells him about horses makes him eager to come.

Sorry to hear of JDH’s household troubles.

Will try to get a couple of flowers of Leschenaultia to send him.

"What a good case that of the Cameroons"; the 4000ft [elevation] is much to CD’s "private satisfaction".

Sends JDH a copy of Orchids.

No summary available.

Thanks for Orchids.

Thanks for Orchids.

Has captured a bee with pollinia adhering to its head. Will send it to CD if he likes.

Thanks CD for his book [Orchids]. CD has opened a new field for observation and a new unexpected track to explore phenomena that had before appeared "irreconcilable with ordinary opinion and method shown in the organic world".

Yellow anthers of Heterocentron produce on the same plant thrice as many seeds as the crimson anthers. Crimson anther seeds produce dwarf plants, others rise high up. Monochaetum ensiferum facts are still more strange. Wants to investigate the case, and asks for a plant of the Melastomataceae just before flowering.

Has JDH a Rhododendron boothii from Bhutan with pistil bent the wrong way?

Thanks for Orchids.

"The big book [Variation] will no doubt go on again now."

JL is writing on Somme implements ["Evidence of antiquity of man", Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 2 (1862): 244–69].

Thanks for Orchids.

Thanks for the book [Orchids].

Found thousands of Ophrys aranifera plants.

Sends CD a quotation from Plato which anticipates the Origin.

Has been enjoying CD’s paper on dimorphism in the Journal of the Linnean Society ["Two forms of Primula", Collected papers 2: 45–63]. He has found similar structures [see Forms of flowers, pp. 116, 122].

Has dissected Leschenaultia biloba flowers. Finds no stigmatic surface in the indusium. Describes what is the apparent stigma but has found no pollen-tubes to confirm it as the real one.

Thanks CD for his book [Orchids].