Dear Darwin

I have just returned from Northamptonshire where I have been spending a week with The Revd M. J. Berkeley our Cryoptogamist, as we call him.¹ I cannot say I did much work but we had many pleasant & profitable Botanical chats & enjoyed the sun, apricots greengages & a sight of Burleigh house & its pictures.² I got a funny fact for you but I believe not a new one. Two varieties of Garden Peas planted side by side caused crossing & the effect of the pollen of one var. produced at once a hybrid pea in the capsule of the other var.

Lindley tells me that the Aegilops in his garden is already identical to appearance with wheat.³ I think I told you that I opened a dozen Meconopsis flowers at Hitcham, 10–12 days before they expanded, cut away the stigmas & laid open the ovaries fully— the result was the fertilization of many ovules & ripening of several seeds— this I think very fair evidence of impregnation through direct application of the pollen to the ovules,—considering that it is only a rude experiment & a first one. The pollen at the time I cut away the stigmata was was not formed in the anthers, & the stigmas themselves wholly unfit for impregnation. Supposing this observation to be confirmed it appears to me to diminish the value of the character afforded by Gymnosperms in both a systematic & physiological point of view. ⁴

I have been reading a capital paper at Berkeley’s on classification of vegetables, by poor Adrien de Jussieu in the Dict. Nouv. des Sc. Nat.—⁵ it is I suppose J^s. last work. Brongnart has also a good paper in it on Fossil vegetables.⁶

I spent a day at Manchester with Binney at Fossil plants,⁷ a study I hate & despise & am always sneaking after all the same. I think we have proof positive now that all Calamites are mere casts of piths! I am glad of it for the Survey people used always to laugh at us for maintaining that we did not know that Calamites was an identifiable vegetable form— The fact is that the striæ are the impressions of the interspaces between the medullary rays, & the scars are points at which bundles go from a pseudo-medullary sheath through the woody wedges to the bark I believe they are all allied to Lycopodiacæ, as are Sigillariæ & Lepidodendrons, Anabathra, Halonia &c.⁸ I do not consider that these are at all allied to Phænogams though in the regular disposition of the vascular bundles they shew a great analogy with Exogens. They are in fact essentially Cryptogamic plants in fruitifⁿ. as well as in the developement of their stems & their vasc. tissue; but, so far as our ideas of high & low go these things are in every respect higher than any now existing. I can conceive their being developed indefinitely higher still & yet be no nearer Phænogams, for they would not approach the nearer to the phænogamic type. In fact I think them deadly enemies of progression; you will however I suppose allow retrocession in time as well as progression upon Zoological evidence as well as upon Botanical.⁹ — I forget whether I told you that they are finding Insects in the Coal abundantly & that some of the Neuropterides & other Ferns are insects wings!¹⁰ Lyell tells me that the Stonesfield slate marsupials are being found out to be placental & other species are being added to them.¹¹

I have just read Braun upon Rejuvenescence¹² & am glad to hear what you think of it! I have not seen Meneghini¹³ either & I am very sick of German phantasies, but should be glad of the loan of both these. I have been getting an insight into his essay upon what is an individual in plants,¹⁴ & he has come to the conclusion that each branch or bud is an individual, for my part I do not see how one is to draw the line between a cell a bud & a branch. A seed I regard as an individual & the only defineable individual except the cell—a seed is one & indivisable; a plant is not so, one or many of its cells may become a new individual & there is no law by which one can limit the number of cells required to carry on independent life nor mention any part of a vegetable from the leaf to the root (inclusive) that may not become or give birth to a new individual, in some one or more species.

Regarding your little Lennies ears¹⁵ I should think you could not do better than go to Bowman,¹⁶ who would I am sure advise you where to go supposing he thought others could give better advice than himself. he is a first rate man. I am sorry to hear such indifferent news of your brother.¹⁷

I shall be really glad of the Balanidae book.—¹⁸ I have Part I. I often look at systematic Zoolog. books to see how matters & subjects are treated & I should have a real interest in the Balanidae besides

I am doing nothing satisfactory about my future prospects—no answer yet to my memorial & no prospect of one.¹⁹ meanwhile I am trying hard for a house at Kew,—one of the old uninhabited ones,—as if I cannot get one I must leave Kew in October & go to Richmond or ewhere.²⁰ My chances are small, but I am attacking the Prince now through Sir J. Clarke ²¹