To J. D. Hooker   [18 September 1862]¹

My dear Hooker

Thanks for your pleasant note, which told me much news, & upon the whole good of yourselves.² You will be awfully busy for a time; but I write now to say that if you think it really worth while to send me a few Dielytra or other Fumariaceous plant (which I have already tried in vain to find here) in a little tin Box, I will try & trace vessels;³ but please observe, I do not know that I shall have time, for I have just become wonderfully interested in experimenting on Drosera with poisons &c.—⁴ If you send any Fumariaceous plant, send, if you can, also 2 or 3 single Balsams.— After writing to you⁵ I looked at vessels of ovary of a Sweet Pea, & from this & other cases, I believe that in ovary the mid-rib vessel alone gives homologies & that the vessels on the edge of the carpel-leaf often run into wrong bundle, just like those on sides of sepals. Hence I look in Crucifers that the ovarium consists of two pistils;

A A being the midrib vessels; & B B being those formed of the vesses on edges of the two carpels run together & going to wrong bundles.— I came to this conclusion before receiving your letter. I wonder why Asa Gray will not believe in the quaternary arrangement;⁶ I had fancied that you saw some great difficulty in the case, & that made me think that my notion must be wrong.

I have been thinking of Cambridge, for a few days, & your going is an immense temptation, but I very much fear I shall not be strong enough;⁷ I have had headach half every day with my stomach intolerably bad.—

Farewell; hearty thanks for your note | C. Darwin