Sir

I have this day forwarded to you a small box containing plants of Lychnis which I hope will reach you tomorrow in tolerably good condition.² I have also enclosed a tin canister of flowers and I hope there will be pollen enough to enable you if you please to try the experiment of fertilising with it some of the plants grown in your neighbourhood. Since I wrote last³ I took my note book into a different part of the wood and examined 122 plants of Lychnis with ⁠⟨⁠the⁠⟩⁠ following result—

Common form. males 41 females 23. hermaphrodite 29 males with dark stamens. 29   I pulled to pieces numbers of the flowers with long p⁠⟨⁠is⁠⟩⁠til but never found the stamens developed in them. The stamens are normally of medium length but in some plants they are very long, in others very short, the flowers on each plant are generally alike in this as in other respects.

With many apologies for troubling you by writing so much about these plants I remain Sir | Yours very respectfully | L. E. Becker