Summary

Thanks for Orchids.

Summary

Sends condolences on death of LH’s wife. Recalls many pleasant hours in Bedford Place. He and Emma thank LH for sending the memorial paper.

Summary

Describes floral anatomy of a Catasetum sent by DO.

Has gone on from orchids to studying insect agency in Pelargonium.

His doubts on the worth of publishing Orchids.

Summary

JDH’s impression on meeting [J. A.] Froud[e].

CD’s projected three volume work.

Complains at poor state of some [unspecified] plant collection.

Summary

Household problems: wife’s health, visitors to Kew.

Will go to sale of J. C. Ross’s effects looking for glacial and Kerguelen Land works not at British Museum.

Summary

Hostile to Spencer’s application of natural selection to society.

JDH on J. E. Gray’s views on collecting.

JDH collecting Wedgwood ware.

Summary

On microscopes.

Cannot remember any plants but Melastoma with different coloured polliniferous anthers.

Summary

Wife’s health better.

Visited Duke of Argyll.

Thanks CD for Cruciferae diagram; will ponder it.

Staggered by complexity of Welwitschia.

Summary

WED’s travel plans; an insect he has observed on Orchis maculata.

Summary

Sends Asa Gray letter: "nearly as mad as ever in our English eyes".

Bates’s paper is admirable. The act of segregation of varieties into species was never so plainly brought forth.

CD is a little sorry that his present work is leading him to believe rather more in the direct action of physical conditions. Regrets it because it lessens the glory of natural selection and is so confoundedly doubtful.

JDH laid too much stress on importance of crossing with respect to origin of species; but certainly it is important in keeping forms stable.

If only Owen could be excluded from Council of Royal Society Falconer would be good to put in. CD must come down to London to see what he can do.

Falconer’s article in Journal of the Geological Society [18 (1862): 348–69] shows him coming round on permanence of species, but he does not like natural selection.

Sends Lythrum salicaria diagram.

Summary

Has passed the time by dissecting flowers of Cruciferae. Sends results, with diagrams, to JDH.

Summary

On success of THH’s Edinburgh lectures.

Agrees that THH is right that the hybrid question is a "hiatus" [in the argument for natural selection] but he overrates it. Crossed varieties frequently produce sterile offspring. On this question asks THH to read his Primula paper [Collected papers 2: 45–63]. CD suspects sterility will come to be viewed as a selected character.

Summary

Believes, contrary to CD, that when anthers arise from petals the development of the pollen is affected by the amputation of the petal.

Believes interbreeding can be used to combine desirable characters, but that, carried beyond narrow limits, it leads to deterioration of the breed.

Has been experimenting on crossing polyanthus.

Summary

Returns Asa Gray’s letter. Disappointed with Gray. Comments on America. British–American relations.

Summary

Lighthearted thoughts on "the development of an Aristocracy" after a visit to Walcot Hall, Shropshire.

On CD’s point about the effect of changed conditions on the reproductive organs, JDH does not see why this is not "itself a variation, not necessarily induced by domestication, but accompanying some variety artificially selected".