My Dear Darwin

I have sent what I have published of my Work to Your Brother for Your acceptance & only wish it were more worthy.¹ If I live, & the American War does not ruin the Country, & what I have in it, I hope to give about 200 additional figures, & a general view of the genus.² This last portion of the work is above my powers, & I often wish I had never attempted that which every one has failed in. Willdenow, Wahlenberg, Kunth, Sprengel Torrey, Tuckerman have left abortive attempts, & mine will be of no other value than shewing their short coming—³

The old observation that “there is nothing stabile but change”,⁴ is especially true in Carex—& it is the absence of any fixed character that renders the definition of groups so perplexing. Carey & Drejer insist on the orifice of the perigynium, as entire, bidentate—or bicuspidate,⁵ but I find in plants otherwise affiliated the orifice exhibiting each form, & no selection of words is adequate to express clearly specific (so called) differences. If you take groups or parts of a large group as variable species, the definition is equally embarassing, & I think no general clavis is possible—that is, affording a ready means for ascertaining a species. I believe the more satisfactory way will be to give first a view of the species of different countries, & then to write the whole as intelligibly as may be, giving indications of such variations as may be found in species widely diffused over the world.

With a view to geographical distribution we want an arrangement of Countries. I have thrown the 600 odd species into such an arrangement—first into the 5 quarters of the World Europe, Asia, Africa America Australia—& the different groups into more definite portions of these large divisions of the world— Asia for instance alone means nothing definite— Then Islands sometimes puzzle me.

I sent Grays note to Hooker, & trust he has returned it to you.⁶ You seem to have conciliated Dear Gray. I send The Times & Saturday Review to my sister who is a neighbour of Grays & I come into the disgrace of those Journals.⁷ I see no issue to the war & can only lament the animosity against England—to me unaccountable—

Yrs sincerely | F. Boott

C. Darwin Esq—