My dear Sir

I thank you cordially. The case interests me in a higher degree than anything which I have heard for a very long time.—² Is it your Brother Harrison W. whom I know? I sh^d. like to hear where the garden is.³

There is one other very important point which I am most anxious to hear, viz the nature of the leaves at the base of the yellow racemes, for leaves are always there produced with the yellow Laburnums, & I suppose so in the case of C. purpureus.⁴

As the tree has produced yellow racemes several times, do you think you could ask your brother to cut off & send me by Post in a box a small branch of the purple stock with the pods or leaves of the yellow sport? This w^d. be an immense favour, for then I would cut the point of junction longitudinally & examine slice under the microscope to be able to state no trace of bud of yellow kind having been inserted.— I do not suspect anything of the kind, but it is sure to be said that your Brother’s gardener either by accident or fraud inserted a bud. Under this point of view it w^d be very good to gather from your Brother how many times the yellow sport has appeared. The case appears to me so very important as to be worth any trouble.

Very many thanks for all assistance so kindly given. Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

I will of course send copy of new Edit. of Var. under Dom: when published in autumn.—⁵

P.S As you say on account of sports I fear to trust Cratægus.⁶