My dear Sir!

I received last week your kind letter of Novbr. 13, in which you ask me the name of the plant, of which I sent you seeds some months ago. I must confess, that I do not remember well, what seeds they were, but I think they were those of our sensitive Mimosa; if so, you will see it as soon as the first leaves appear.¹

In your “Movements of plants” (pg. 308) you say, that the cotyledons of Bauhinia (grandiflora) would probably have closed completely at night, if the seedlings had been kept in a warmer place, and to me also this appeared to be most probably.² Now we have presently very hot weather, (about 25^oC. at night, 30^oC or more at noon), but the cotyledons of some very young seedings of Bauhinia grandiflora do not sleep at all!— In Bauhinia brasiliensis I observed lately a curious fact; in bright sunshine the two halves of the leaves rise up more or less, as they do also at night; now I met with a plant, which, after having been exposed for hours to the rays of the sun, had suddenly been overshadowed by a large tree and in this plant the two halves of the leaves had descended beneath the horizontal plan, which they use to form during the day, forming with the horizon angles varying from about 15^o to nearly 45^o.³

I enclosed some fresh seeds of a long-styled plant of Pontederia crassipes, which I had legitimately fertilised with pollen from the long stamens of mid-styled plants.⁴

Wishing you a very happy new year I am | dear Sir with the deepest respect | Yours very sincerely | Friz Mülller