Sir.

I have just received your note.² I also beg to acknowledge receipt of M^rs. Darwin’s note regarding Primula paper.³ I would have answered the latter immediately & expressed my desire for you to communicate paper as soon as convenient, had it not been for the additions & modifications it has undergone since you criticised it .... .⁴ a keen sensitiveness of a natural—I fear insuperable—inaptitude in the working out and expressing my thoughts makes me dread publication, and this the more especially in the present instance. However, since you think it fit for publication from what you saw of it before; perhaps—health & time permitting—you will glance over proofs of summary & the few remarks I have made on late mixed umbel of non-dimorphic Cowslip.⁵

Anyhow, I will be glad now to hear of your sending it off to the Secretary;⁶ and I will do my best to improve it when I receive proofs.

Pray excuse me, and accept my best thanks for all the trouble I am giving you.

I have been so busy for sometime past that I have never had time to communicate results of experiments on Passifloras &c. &c.⁷ but as I intend going home in or about the beginning of March, I shall then if not before devote myself to them and give you the results.⁸

I previously noticed the nearly perfect fertility of the long-styled Linum mongynum   you then expressed a wish for seed.⁹ A plant which I got in the summer has produced a single capsule. I enclose the seeds— No. 1.—results of a long-styled homomorphic union. Packet No. 2. is queried but I think I got the seeds sent me as from a long-styled L. mongynum.

And now with kindest wishes for a continued improvement of your health | I remain | Sir | Yours respectfully & obliged | J. Scott