From Emma Darwin to J. D. Hooker   12 March [1864]

Down Bromley | Kent.

Mar 12

Dear Dr Hooker

C. begs me to tell you that he will be very glad to have those marked on the list with a red pencil & those mentioned in your note.1 He wd be very glad to have them marked as to whether they are stove plants or greenhouse plants.2 The address as usual   To the care of the Down postman.

Ch. hopes to be able to write to you soon. He is very much obliged for your last letter.3 He has had a bad fortnight but it is ending in a bad cold which never much signifies with him.4

Poor little Charley. I thought that troublesome complaint was only infectious through a hat or bonnet.5

With my love to Mrs Hooker yours | very sincerely | E. Darwin

Endorsement: ‘/64.’

1
The list and Hooker’s note have not been found; however, Hooker had offered to send Norantea in his letter of 9 [March] 1864. CD thanked Hooker for supplying him with many specimens of climbing plants in ‘Climbing plants’, p. 14 n.
2
The hothouse, accommodating stove-plants, at Down House was completed in February 1863; a greenhouse had been built in the 1850s (see Correspondence vol. 11, Appendix VI).
4
CD had begun to feel better towards the end of February 1864 (see letter to Asa Gray, 25 February [1864] and n. 2). However, on 27 February 1864, Emma Darwin again began recording sickness on a daily basis in her diary (DAR 242); on 11 March 1864, she wrote ‘cough & cold began’.
5
Hooker’s son Charles Paget Hooker had contracted ringworm (see letter from J. D. Hooker, 9 [March] 1864 and nn. 26 and 27).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-4426,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-4426