Forwards H. T. Stainton letter for reply.

Finds many Cucurbita have tendrils with sticking ends.

The "potentiality of so many organs in plants to play so many parts is one of the most wonderful of your discoveries . . . one day it will itself play a prodigious part in the interpretation of both morphological and physiological facts".

Is disgusted with Sabine’s address [see 4708] because of its mutilation of what JDH wrote.

THH’s slashing leader in Reader ["Science and ""Church policy"" ", 4 (1864): 821] – as usual he destroys all in his path.

Encloses letter from G. H. K. Thwaites with a message for CD [see encl].

No summary available.

No summary available.

Has finished long paper on "Climbing plants". Prefers sending it to Linnean Society if Bentham does not think it too long.

For New Zealand flora [1864–7] CD suggests JDH count plants with irregular corollas and compare with England.

Does not quite agree about Reader.

Is Tyndall author of piece on spiritualism?

CD’s illness diagnosed as "suppressed gout".

Bentham wants "Climbing plants" for Journal of the Linnean Society, however long [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 9 (1865): 1–118]. Publication in Proceedings of the Royal Society restricts correspondence.

Reader much improved.

Tyndall did write piece on spiritualism ["Science and the spirits", Reader 4 (1864): 725–6].

"Suppressed gout" annoys him as a term cloaking ignorance.

"Climbing plants" sent off.

Encourages JDH to include notes on gradation of important characters in Genera plantarum or to write a paper on the subject. Has given prominence to gradation of unimportant characters in climbing plants. Believes that it is common for the same part in an individual plant to be in different states. Same may be true of important parts – for example position of ovule may differ.

Two articles in last Natural History Review interested him; "Colonial floras" [n.s. 5 (1865): 46–63]

and "Sexuality of cryptogams" [n.s. 5 (1865): 64–79].

Fact of similarity of orders in tropics is extremely curious. Thinks it may be connected with glacial destruction.

Leo Lesquereux says he is a convert for the curious reason that CD’s books make birth of Christ and redemption by grace so clear to him!

"Not one question [for JDH] in this letter!"

Cannot come until week from Saturday.

Worked to death by Genera plantarum.

John Scott has arrived in Calcutta and has been given an appointment by Thomas Anderson.