More speculations [see 5811] on the evolutionary development of man, relating progress to the consumption of better food and the availability of moist air.

JDH thanks Asa Gray for sending him some apples. He & Mr Smith compare the variety sent, the 'Northern Spy', to English apples including the 'Ribstone Pippen' & the 'Nonsuch'. Discusses his work on the Rubiaceae family including the genera: Psychotria, Cephaelis, Nonateleiae[?], Rudgea ,Palicourea, Chasalia & Grumilea. Next he will work on Borreroids, including Hedyotoids. George Bentham is working on Compositae, currently struggling with Gnaphalia. JDH's wife, Frances Hooker, has finished translating Decaisne & Maout & Hooker himself did some work on the introduction. [John Gilbert] Baker is working on Monocots. [Thomas] Thomson is neglecting his work on the FLORA INDICA & there are problems with the printing & the length. JDH intends to take over editorship & organize it into a shorter manual with the different orders contributed by expert authors. JDH's mother, Lady Maria Hooker, is ill in Torquay but recovering. JDH thanks Gray for Cytinus, Apodanthes, a paper on Galax & his attention to Rubiaceae. JDH must put off his trip to California, he worries he is getting too old but takes comfort that Sir H. Holland just went over the Blue mountains of Jamaica aged over 80. Murchison has Hemiplegia & has resigned himself to death, his likely successor as President of the Geographical Society is Sir H. Rawlinson. Letter appears incomplete & is unsigned but is written in the hand of Joseph Dalton Hooker.