To J. D. Hooker   14 November [1861]

My dear Hooker

I was very bad in bed yesterday,¹ but not too bad to be much pleased by your note & magnificent lot of Bonateas;² They have been soaked in water & are now in spirits & with a little dose of Nitric A. I have great hopes they will be clarified enough for dissection.—³

I was in foolish despair when I wrote, & thought all my work done for; & I cannot yet see how it is not “a great blow & discouragement”,—unless indeed I do find that the lower sepal & upper petals are sometimes in allied forms deeply bifid; if they are bifid, then cohesion is so common with the orchids, that the view which I imagined & showed by red lines may be true.⁴ Will it not be a very odd case that in Habenaria that the outlines of upper sepal, upper petal, & lower sepal (& indeed of Labellum) do not one of them give the real shape of these same sepals & petals?—

You are a true friend in need.— I can hardly bear to let Bonatea soak long enough.—

Adios | C. Darwin