To J. D. Hooker   6 September [1857]1

Down Bromley Kent

Sept 6th

My dear Hooker

If at home & you can find time, I shd. be very glad of the Books, (Koch or Ledebour, or Webb or anything) in which varieties are marked to tabulate them.2

Can you at same time lend me the Cybele Brit.3 as Linn. Socy. is closed.—

About varieties, I have had one slap in face, viz in Miquel’s Holland, but he only gives 46 vars, in whole Flora & does not in the least show what they are.—4

I have had, also, a far more serious blow in a list of close species sent my by A. Gray, which I expected confidently would follow same apparent law with varieties; & I have written to him to ask whether he marked the species in the big genera with equal care with the little.5

I shd. be very glad to hear ever so roughly the result of your tabulation of Indian Flora, as some guide to see how things are tending.6

I do not know whether you care about Galls, the enclosed wild Carrot seems funny, each with bright orange larvæ within.

Ever yours | C. Darwin

1
Dated by the relationship to the letter to J. D. Hooker, 11 September [1857].
2
See letters to J. D. Hooker, 1 August [1857] and 22 August [1857].
3
Watson 1847–59.
4
CD’s calculations on Miquel 1837 are in DAR 15.2: 32–4, DAR 16.1: 146–6a, and DAR 16.2: 218–222v. They are given in Natural selection, p. 150.
6
In the event, Hooker did not make the calculations himself (see letter to J. D. Hooker, 11 September [1857]).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

6.1 wild] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-2137,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-2137