To J. D. Hooker   29 August [1872]1

Down,| Beckenham, Kent.

Aug. 29th

My dear Hooker

I am delighted that you & Mrs. Hooker will be here soon.— Mrs H. speaks of Saturday the 8th, but it is the 7th & we shall then expect you.—2

I am now at work on Drosera, & my object is to ask whether you could lend me for about a week D. capensis or any other species, except. D. Spathulata & filimornis & the English species.—3

When I was at Kew, I saw D. capensis & you then thought, there wd be no objection to lending it to me.—4 In case you can, I would send my gardener Lettington,5 (who wd like to see the Garden) to Kew, as the plant wd. thus come safest, but it wd. require packing up with much care, so that no particles shd fall on the leaves.—

Yours affecty | C. Darwin

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from J. D. Hooker, 2 September 1872.
2
The note from Francis Harriet Hooker has not been found. Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242) records that the Hookers visited on Saturday 7 September 1872.
3
Drosera capensis, D. spatulata, and D. filiformis are described in Insectivorous plants, pp. 279–81; specimens of each were obtained from Hooker.
4
CD evidently visited Kew during his last stay in London, from 16 February to 21 March 1872 (‘Journal’ (Appendix II)).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

3.2 my gardener] interl
3.4 much] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-8491,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-8491