Requests information as to means of sending two pamphlets to a professor in the United States.
Remarks on geographical divisions of the flora of the Southern Hemisphere.
JDH beginning Galapagos plants. Value of studying insular floras with respect to inquiries about adaptation of species.
[Copy made by CD’s amanuensis.] Discusses the rarity of intermediate forms.
Questions on variation in nature: taxa varying in one region but not another. Variation between vs within species. Rarity of variation in important organs within a species. G. R. Waterhouse’s views on variation in highly developed organs, which CD relates to variation in rudimentary organs.
Asks for cases of obligate self-fertilising plants.
[CD annotation proposes using the Steudel Nomenclator botanicus (1821–4) to determine if variable species occur in genera with many species.]
CD welcomes the prospect of the Philosophical Club of the Royal Society as means for seeing old acquaintances and making new ones. Will try to go up to London regularly.
Admits that the warning from JDH and Asa Gray (that more harm than good will come from combat over the species issue) makes him feel "deuced uncomfortable".
Reflects upon the complexity of Agassiz; how singular that a man of his eminence and immense knowledge "should write such wonderful stuff & bosh".
Latitude overrules everything in distribution. Alpine distributions are like insular. Tabulating proportions.
T. V. Wollaston’s Madeira insects: many flightless, thus not blown to sea. TVW’s insects do not confirm Forbes’s Atlantis.
Pea self-fertilisation: has forty-five varieties growing side by side.
Describes seed-salting experiments: e.g., immersion in tank filled with snow. Reports some successful germinations.
Made list of naturalised plants from Asa Gray’s Manual [of Botany] to calculate the proportions of the great families.
Rejects JDH’s suggestion that seed-salting experiments be conducted on huge scale. Only wishes to demonstrate possibility of sea transport, not establishment of any particular insular flora. More seed results.
Is collecting facts on variation; questions AG on the alpine flora of the U. S.
Sends a list of plants from AG’s Manual of botany [1848] and asks him to append the ranges of the species.
Has filled up CD’s paper [see 1674].
Distribution and relationships of alpine flora in U. S.
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