It would be false to pretend he cares very much about his election to the Institut.

Glad to hear GdeS plans to publish a work on the more ancient fossil plants. Hopes he will report also on the more recent Tertiary forms because the close gradation of such forms is "a fact of paramount importance for the principle of evolution".

Thanks for GdeS’s Le monde des plantes [1879].

CD has just read "Végétation polaire" [C. R. Congr. Int. Sci. Geogr. 1 (1878): 197–242] with interest. Hooker gave it conspicuous place in his Royal Society Address (1878).