Dear Darwin

I am greatly pleased & indeed relieved by your letter.¹ for no one but Oliver (who can judge) has pronounced any opinion on my Greenland paper,² & I find that one is so easily deceived as to the value of such researches, that I was any thing but sanguine of your approval. You have caught me up in a great blunder at p. 264. where the 4 should be 0.—³ on turning to the proof sheets (which I have kept) I find both this & the fig 8. of same line (which should have been 5) marked by myself for correction: but the correction not inserted by some accident of my own. I must correct it in the forthcoming number. it is very awkward & stupid.

I do not attach much importance to there being no Arctic Asiatic species in mts. of trop. Asia, both considering how low latter are & because Arctic Asia is itself so wretchedly poor a flora.— & it is quite met by the fact of such an Arctic European species being in the Mts of the Peninsula (which is not in Himalaya!—) as Alchemilla vulgaris, which seems to indicate some current of migration from Europe or W. asia down S.E. to Peninsula & Ceylon. & is an awful staggerer to bridge migrations.

I will send you Lythrum &c. as soon as weather improves   I fear Masdevallia is all out of flower but will see & let you have the plant if worth sending on⁴

I have a hazy recollection of Link’s speculation. where is it?⁵

I think with you that it is perhaps better not to bring a resume of sexual orchids before Linnæan; but wish indeed you will give us a note on our trimorphous Gongora of Schomburgk,⁶ which Bentham & I certainly should like to see noticed, however shortly, in our Journal or Transactions.⁷ It has long been considered as one of the most wonderful things in the Society’s possession: & the explanation of it should certainly appear in our publications.

Do not bother any more about the box, the irregularity was of our Rail-way here in not sending a Rl. ticket—⁸which reminds me that you should not prepay every thing as you do: there is not the least occasion for it.

I suppose you will hardly be able to get up to Oliver’s Lecture on Tertiary Floras, at R.I. next Friday. Evg.⁹

Ever yours affec | J D Hooker