My dear Darwin

The Leguminous affair is extremely curious, I am quite gone over to your side in the matter of eternal hybrids & hermaph.² Carmichælia & Clianthus have closed flowers, & hence probably require artificial hybridization but Edwardsia has exserted genitalia. & should not be parallel case

With regard to the Wellington Clover case, it really looks too good— my impression is that Wellington was hardly a colony before 1842, & that there could not be sufficient clover cultivation there before that to warrant any conclusions, but I may be wrong—³ At any rate I should like some definite details of the state & extent of Clover-crops before 1842, say in 1839–40— I will show your letter to Sinclair, who will be here tomorrow.⁴

None of the New Zealand Legumes have flowers quite as small as Clover, though those of Carmichælia & of Notospartium are very small.⁵ Is it not dangerous to assume that Humble bees would not visit small flowers in New Zealand, because they do not in England— In England I fancy the more numerous & active hive-bee forestalls the Humble bee in the matter of small flowers—if indeed the Humble bees do not visit the latter— They surely visit Heather-flowers in Scotland?

It would indeed be curious if a relation could be traced between no bees & no small fld. Leguminosæ—but you must remember the strange absence of small Leguminosæ in Fuegia, Falklands, & the Pacific Islands generally. The question hence becomes a very involved one, & forms part of a larger one, viz is there any relation between the Geog. distrib. of bees & of Leguminosæ.

Bentham’s late researches into the British Flora have so greatly modified his views of the limits of species, that in my eyes they invalidate the results of local Floras very materially. He has completed the MS. of his British Flora, having studied every species from all parts of the world, and most of them alive in Britain, France, and other parts of Europe. Well—he has turned out as great a lumper as I am! and worse.⁶

Then did you see a paper of Decaisne’s on Pyrus, translated in Gard. Chron. about 3 weeks ago—in which he adopts Thomson’s and my views of species and says that if he had to monograph Plantaginaceae again he would reduce whole sections to one species and of course as many species, i.e. marked forms, would then rank as varieties. Now it was Decaisne (a most admirable Botanist) who on receiving the Flora Indica, wrote me most kindly and earnestly begging me to reconsider my mode of viewing species, and hinting that I was going to the devil.⁷ All this does not directly affect your results, but it shows that you should draw them from materials of all kinds—local and general, and from systematists.

⁠⟨⁠section missing⁠⟩⁠⁸ forms & should never have dreamed of establishing two varieties on the 20 specimens, but simply regarded the plant as variable.

Are you coming up next week— we hope the Sulivans⁹ are coming to take a quiet pot-luck with us on Tuesday at 6 when Sinclair will be here & Lindley—¹⁰ Can you not come if to be in Town?

Henslow will be here on the following week.¹¹

E⁠⟨⁠ver yrs⁠⟩⁠ aff^ly