From G. C. Oxenden   8 July [1862]1

Dear Sir

This post brought me many letters—& when an hour afterwards I sought for your’s, that I might reply to it, it was missing, & I have not yet found it—2

Thus, I forget the address of Mr Wollaston, & cannot write to you there—3

for this reason also, I have this day sent you a few spikes of “Epipactus palustris” addressed to Bromley as usual— I hope they will reach you ’ere entirely faded—

Lastly, I sent, in a separate parcel, a little Book which I have just published— which I trust may make you laugh—4

Sincerely | G. C. Oxenden

Broome July 8—

1
The year is established by the reference to CD’s visiting George Buchanan Wollaston (see n. 3, below), and by the reference to Oxenden 1862 (see n. 4, below).
2
CD’s letter has not been found, but see the letter trom G. C. Oxenden, 8 July 1862.
3
George Buchanan Wollaston, a fern collector of Chislehurst, Kent, had invited CD to visit him in order to examine a specimen of the orchid Spiranthes gemmipara (see letter from Frederick Currey, 3 July 1862). No such visit is recorded in Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242), and CD did not refer to this species in the second edition of Orchids.
4
Oxenden 1862. Railway Horace was a parody of Horace, the Roman satirist; the copy sent to CD has not been located in the Darwin Library.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3648,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3648