My dear M^r Bentham

I have had real pleasure in signing Dyer’s certificate.—¹ It was very kind in you to write to me about the Orchideæ, for it has pleased me to an extreme degree that I could have been of the least use to you about the nature of the parts.² They are wonderful creations these orchids, & I sometimes think with a glow of pleasure, when I remember making out some little point in their method of fertilisation.—

With respect to terms no doubt you will be able to improve them greatly, for I knew nothing about the terms as used in other groups of plants.— Could you not invent some quite new term from gland, implying viscidity? or append some word to gland,— I used for Cirripeds “cement-gland”.—³

Your present work must be frightfully difficult: I looked at a few dried flowers & could make neither heads nor tails of them; & I well remember wondering what you would do with them when you come to the group in the Genera Plantarum.—⁴

I heartily wish you safe through your work, & I remain in a very conceited frame of mind, My dear M^r Bentham, Yours very sincerely | Charles Darwin