Summary

Thanks JL for information about Acropera luteola.

Also thanks for the Gongora; cannot avoid the impression it is male.

Summary

JDH asked to check Lindley on Acropera.

Summary

Delayed thanking JL for two notes until he heard from Hooker about Acropera luteola; had no idea A. luteola was not a well-known name.

Cites his reasons for identifying A. loddigesii as male; hopes for a Gongora flower from Hooker which, JL suggested, may be the female.

Summary

Seeks information on heating hothouses night and day.

Summary

CD is mistaken in considering Acropera unisexual, with only male flowers [Orchids, pp. 203–10]. JS has successfully fertilised two A. loddigesii flowers. One is ripening. Dissection of the other shows the pollen accomplishes fertilisation without contacting any stigmatic surface. Abortive ovules found in flowers that did not become fertilised when pollinated. JS suggests Acropera has both unisexual male and hermaphrodite flowers.

Summary

Would be obliged for correction of references in Variation [1st ed.].

Summary

Sends Primula scotica and P. farinosa.

So far cannot fertilise Gongora atropurpurea although it is similar to Acropera luteola.

Experimenting on intergeneric hybrids to test CD’s view that sterility is not a special endowment.

Scott’s personal history.

Acropera capsule grows.

Plans for experiments CD has suggested on Primula, peloric Antirrhinum, and Verbascum.

Asks about Gärtner’s experiments on maize.

Aware of Anderson-Henry’s failures.

Through kindness of J. H. Balfour and James McNab, enjoys facilities for research. JS is in charge of the propagating department. Balfour almost engaged him to be superintendent of the Madras Horticultural Garden.

Summary

Thanks JL for a flower of Bolbophyllum, a genus that puzzles him.

Recent work has convinced him a number of orchids are male. Points out that JL [in The vegetable kingdom (1846), pp. 177–8] "accidentally misquoted" R. H. Schomburgk on this point.

Summary

Has read JS’s paper [MS of "Observations on the functions and structure of the reproductive organs in the Primulaceae", J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 8 (1865): 78–126] which has interested him greatly. Will communicate it to the Linnean Society if JS carries out a few corrections.

Would like to hear about his Verbascum and Passiflora experiments.

Summary

Asks CD whether he hears from Asa Gray. JDH’s opinion of the crisis [Trent case, Nov 1861] and the American Civil War.

Julius von Haast alludes to glacial drift in Middle Island of New Zealand.

Backwardness of JDH’s son, Willy.

Encloses a reference from Daniel Oliver which may be useful.

Summary

Sends F. Hildebrand’s paper for publication by the Linnean Society or in Natural History Review.

Summary

CD’s respect for JS’s indomitable work and interesting experiments increases steadily.

His gratitude for the primulas and the astonishing Gongora specimen.

Asks JS’s opinion about crossing a primrose with the pollen of a wild cowslip and of a cultivated polyanthus.

Summary

Requests that DO examine enclosed microscope slides of Acropera ovules, to confirm CD’s opinion that females are non-functional.

Can DO comment on disagreement between Robert Brown and John Lindley over the number of Acropera carpels?

O. Heer’s Atlantis theory vs CD’s hypothesis of a migration north during warm periods.

Summary

He and L. C. Treviranus have repeated many of CD’s orchid observations with the same results. Sends his paper ["Fruchtbildung der Orchideen", Bot. Ztg. 21 (1863): 329–33, 337–45].

Summary

AG’s "capital" review of Orchids [Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 34 (1862): 138–44].

Thinks there are three forms of Lythrum salicaria.

Discusses transport of seeds by sea.

Summary

Can only conjecture that the problem occurs because the plant is not living in its natural conditions. Refers to what he said on Acropera [in Orchids]. Many plants under culture have sexual functions altered.

Asks PHG to look at bee Ophrys at Torquay to see if pollinia are ever removed. "It is my greatest puzzle."

Summary

Lindley suggests Gongora may be female Acropera.

CD’s orchid book nearly ready for press.

Discovers trimorphism in Lythrum is in H. Lecoq [Études sur la géographie botanique de l’Europe (1854–8)].

Summary

A German scholar says JDH first applied natural selection to replacement of races of men, the ruder races of Polynesians yielding to civilised Europeans. CD cannot remember reading this.

Warns JDH to take care Welwitschia does not turn into a case of barnacles and consume years instead of months.

In what months do flowers appear in Acropera loddigesia and A. luteola? CD is alarmed by John Scott’s observations on them, which differ from his own. "I am very uneasy."

Summary

Sends Acropera capsule for CD to dissect.

Will try to raise Acropera from seed (never done before in Britain) to examine its sexual forms.

Studying primroses, parthenogenesis, and reproduction of some cryptogams.

Received maize varieties from CD.

Summary

Sends orchids from W. H. Gower.