To J. D. Hooker   [24 March 1846]1

Down Bromley Kent

Tuesday

My dear Hooker

I had a letter yesterday from Ehrenberg, in which he expresses a strong wish for some specimens of the grasses from Ascension. (no doubt for comparison with the microscopical objects in the tuff)2 but they must be named else they will be useless to him. He says specimen an inch in length wd be sufficient, & I presume he does not want the inflorescene.— I will tell him that I ask you, & if you cannot supply him no one can.— I am going to write almost immediately to him & shall endeavour to send through the Geograph. Soc.—

Since last writing to you, I have finished Hilaire & found one of my queries about plants being higher & lower well discussed, though yet I do not feel quite satisfied.—3

I see he praises Moquin-Tandon’s work on Teratologie Vegetable.—4

Ever yours | C. Darwin

1
Dated from CD’s reference to having received the letter from C. G. Ehrenberg, 11 March 1846, which arrived at Down on 23 March (see letter to C. G. Ehrenberg, 25[–31?] March [1846]).
2
Probably for Ehrenberg 1846.
3
Saint-Hilaire 1841, pp. 791–4. The pages are heavily marked and annotated. CD commented on p. 791: ‘There is no highest, there is most modified, & by mans standard high & low. The impossibility of saying what is highest is conformable to my theory—which is highest var of cabbage or dog?’ CD recorded that he finished reading this work on 20 March 1846 (DAR 119; Vorzimmer 1977, p. 135).
4
Moquin-Tandon 1841.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.3 named] interl
1.4 He] altered from ‘His’
1.4 an inch] ‘an’ altered from ‘a’; ‘inch’ above del ‘inch’
1.7 endeavour to] interl
3.1 I] over illeg

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-962,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-962