My dear Sir

I am much obliged for your kind letter & photograph.¹ I am always glad to know the appearance of any one for whom I feel respect   I was glad to receive sometime ago the reports &c. to which you refer.² I feel doubts whether sudden & great variations often occur under nature, & still more whether they are often long propagated. I am glad that you are attending to colours of diœcious flowers, but it is well to remember that their colours may be as unimportant to them as those of a Gall, or indeed as the colour of an amethyst or ruby is to these gems.—³ Some 30 years ago I began to investigate the little purple flowers in the centre of the umbels of the carrot;—⁴ I suppose my memory is wrong but it tells me that these flowers are female, & I think that I once got a seed from one of them; but my memory may be quite wrong—⁵

I hope that you will continue your interesting researches & I remain Dear Sir. | Yours very faithfully | Ch. Darwin.