My dear Darwin

I have dissected the Leschenaultia Flowers very carefully—² I can find no trace whatever of stigma within the indusium, there is certainly no naked surface there such as I saw in the former plant I dissected—³ I find the cuticle continuous every where down to the chink at the base.

The tissue under the cuticle of the indusium inside is not stigmatic, though it is of very large delicate utricles such as lead the way to stigmatic tissue, & this tissue on the side next the glandular surface is continuous to the latter & thus deliquesces into a viscid surface quite stigmatic in many characters, though I do not see the long utricles so characteristic of most stigmatic tissues.

There is no doubt then that the external viscid surface is the apparent stigma. I have failed to prove it to be the real one—for—I find no pollen tubes in it, nor any protruded from the pollen grains, nor do I find any pollen grain either inside or outside indusium that has protruded a tube.

Then again I cannot find any stigmatic tissue in the style— There is a large hollow canal all the way down, communicating with the chink at the bottom of the indusium—but I have failed to trace any communication between this & the tissues of the apparent stigma.— To our shame, we have hardly a Goodeniaceous plant in the Garden, & none in good state. Poor Smith, our always wholly inefficient curator, is now half blind.—⁴

Ever yrs aff | J D Hooker