JL’s review of Huxley ["Lectures to working men", Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 4 (1864)].

CD very ill.

Suspects F. Boott’s widow is illegitimate granddaughter of Erasmus Darwin.

CD, like JDH, has speculated that agrarian weeds have become adapted to cultivated ground. Suggests comparison with country of origin.

Wallace’s praise of Herbert Spencer’s Social statics baffles CD.

[Letter completed by E. A. Darwin.]

CD’s illness.

The difficulty of getting John Scott to publish his work. Has sent Scott’s paper [on Primulaceae] to Linnean Society. CD is sure it is valuable.

CD continues very ill.

His only work is a little on tendrils and climbers. Asks whether all tendrils are modified leaves or whether some are modified stems.

Last number [Jan 1864?] of Natural History Review is best that has appeared.

JS’s Primula paper was read at the Linnean Society and praised warmly by G. Bentham. Hooker was not present.

Compares Clematis and Tropaeolum with respect to touch response. Tropaeolum shows a momentary response and quick recovery. Clematis takes hours to respond, and shows no recovery.

CD can show the gradations between leaves and tendrils, but how a branch passes into a tendril utterly puzzles him.

Bentham so impressed with JS’s paper that he is invited to become Associate Member of Linnean Society.

Sends Hermann Crüger’s paper ["A few notes on the fecundation of orchids and their morphology", J. Proc. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 8 (1865): 127–35] for publication.

"Boasts" of confirmation that sexes are separate in Catasetum.

Sends, for identification, specimens of bees and wasps which fertilise orchids. [Notes in FS’s hand on the same sheet identify the specimens.]

Does not know Scott’s qualifications to be curator at Kew.

Frankland’s theory of glaciers is absurd.

Has JDH heard claim that plants in Northern and Southern Hemispheres turn in opposite directions?

Are there plant families with no twining and climbing plants?

Asks for a Smilax to study movement.

Struck with corresponding positions of tendrils and flower-stalks in Passiflora. Sends [W. E. Darwin’s] dissection drawings of earliest stages. Infers that tendril is a modified flower peduncle.

Requests DO look at mode of climbing in Tecoma.

Thanks for information on Tecoma.

Cannot believe DO’s statement about Catasetum; is sure C. tridentatum sets seeds in its native country.

CD erred on Acropera, but how is it naturally fertilised?

John Scott has left Edinburgh Botanic Garden.

Asks JDH to ask Tyndall whether Frankland exaggerates the effect of snowfall on advance of European glaciers.

Huxley and Falconer squabble too much in public.

Eighty-two plants have germinated from earth on wounded partridge’s foot.

Asks DO to give enclosed [letter?] from John Scott to Hooker.

JS’s work on orchid self-sterility; Acropera has 371250 seeds in one capsule.

Wishes something could be done for Scott.

Proposes to support John Scott in research on relative fertility and self-incompatibility of plants. CD would pay him for a year or two but wants JDH to give him research facilities at Kew.

Sees difficulty of placing Scott at Kew. Suspects Balfour is prejudiced because Scott is a Darwinian.

CD’s former letter on Clematis [4403] blundered; work now being revised.

Enquires about the relationship of English grains to French milligrammes.

CD has thrown away injured partridge’s foot.