My dear Gray.

I thank you for two pleasant letters; the former about Reviews in Athenæum & many other points, & the second shorter with answers to several of my questions.² In this latter you seem cruelly overworked. Although it is one of my pleasures to write to you & a very great pleasure to receive a letter from you; I earnestly beg you never to write to me when so busy; if I did not hear for six months or twelve months, I should understand the cause. Remember what a number of valuable & most interesting letters, I have received from you. So pray do not write unless you have a little leisure, which seems rare with you.—

I have little or nothing to say, for I see no one & hear from no one except dear Hooker.³ But I must just run through some points in your letters. How curious the lie about Ohio marriages!⁴ I find it a dreadful evil in my compiling work, not knowing what to trust.⁵ Many thanks for references about Phyllotaxis;⁶ I have been half mad over it, but am having a lull: I have made no end of diagrams; but all my attempts have signally failed, as might have been expected. You will have seen by a later letter that I have received your Reviews on Decandolle.⁷ I suppose you will have received Bentham’s address, which has pleased me much, more than I understand why: it will do a world of good for our side.—⁸ What you tell me about Phlox sounds very suspicious;⁹ I have been looking at our one annual P. Drummondii & that is not dimorphic. Euonymus, I see, is dimorphic like Thyme, ie, hermaphrodite & female plants.¹⁰ Mitchella has only two flower buds, alas! but we have just found out, why it is unhealthy, viz we gave the plants too much water.—¹¹

The seeds of Sicyos did not germinate; & only one plant has come up of Echinocystis: I have been looking at its tendrils & seen with great interest their irritability; it is a very pretty little discovery of yours.¹² I am observing the plant in another respect, namely the incessant rotatory movement of the leading shoots, which bring the tendrils into contact with any body within a circle of a foot or 20 inches in diameter..— If I can make out anything clear about this movement, & do not find that it is known, I will perhaps write a letter to you for the chance of its being worth inserting in Silliman or elsewhere.—¹³

Farewell. I have written this merely to tell you not to write, which proves that I am one of the best of human beings, | Farewell. C. Darwin

(I do not know who “Historicus” is.)¹⁴