Dear old Darwin

I must just thank you for the “Movements”, which seems a most capital production, & I am so pleased to see Franks name associated with your’s in it—¹ I have read only two chapters, vii & viii. & they are splendid, but I hate the zigzags.!—² Bauhinia leaf closing is a curious case; does it not show that said leaf consists of two leaflets?—³

The fact that for good action the leaves want a good illumination during the preceding day is very suggestive of experiments with the electric light. They are like the new paint that only shines by night after sun-light by day.⁴ There are heaps of points I should like to know more about.

Dyer & Baker are taken aback by the keel of the Cucurbita seed;—which keel was a wonderful discovery in Welwitschia!!!⁵

I have had no time to read more than the 2 chapters as yet, for I have a stock of half read books on hand & no time for any of them. I am only $\frac{2}{3}$ through Wallace;⁶ it is splendid— what a number of cobwebs he has swept away.— that such a man should be a Spiritualist is more wonderful than all the movements of all the plants.⁷

He has done great things towards the explanation of the N. Zeald Flora & Australian, but marred it by assuming a preexistent S.W. Australian Flora—⁸ I am sure that the Australian Flora is very modern in the main; & that the S.W. peculiarities are exaggerations due to long isolation during the severance of the West from the East by the inland sea or straits that occupied the continent from Carpentaria to the Gt. Bight. I live in hopes of showing by an analysis (botanical) of the Australian types, that they are all derived from the Asiatic continent.—⁹

Meanwhile I have no chance of tackling problems— I must grind away at the Garden, the Bot. Mag & Indian Flora, which I cannot afford to give up, & Gen. Plant. which alone I delight in.¹⁰ I am at Palms, a most difficult task: but sometimes weeks elapse & not a stroke of work done! I am getting very weary of “working for a living”, & am beginning to covet rest & leisure in a way I never did before; but I must first look out for the education of three sons,—all hopeful I am glad to say, but one still an infant!¹¹

The Grays will be back in a fortnight, they have changed their plans & will spend 2 or 3 winter months here & then go abroad (with us) for the spring.¹² They will go into lodgings in Kew. We contemplate getting out a paper or book on the distribution of U.S. plants together (as one of Hayden’s Reports.)¹³

Have you read Pagets Lecture on plant diseases?¹⁴ it is very suggestive & a wonderful specimen of style aiding in giving great importance to possibly very superficial resemblances between animal & vegetable malformations: still there must be a great deal in the subject to be investigated.

I suppose we should get “Nobbe’s Handbuch der Samenkunde”.—¹⁵ is it an expensive work— our funds for purchase are rather short— but if inexpensive book I will order it at once

Ever affy Yrs | J D Hooker

Paget has started the idea of a Vegetable Pathologist for Kew & I have asked him to corkscrew Gladstone¹⁶ about it.—

We were very sorry to see Miss Wedgwoods death in the paper— I fear that Mrs Darwin will feel it a great deal.¹⁷