Summary

Frank [Darwin] has found a Trifolium remarkable for "bloom", but it was not in flower. If GHD knows where it grows, could he dig up the whole plant?

Summary

Requests some seeds.

Believes the leaves of Phyllanthus sleep like those of Cassia.

Summary

Encloses Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, with account of a fungus that exhales chlorine;

relates his discovery in 1852 of a flowering plant that had "perfectly formed beetles" in the place of anthers.

Summary

Birthday wishes.

Summary

Statement of U.S. sales of CD’s works.

Summary

Cites evolutionary passages by Alexander Braun in English edition of Braun’s Verjüngung [1853].

Summary

Heliotropic movements. Is giving up experiments until the spring.

Summary

Comments on HNM’s book [Notes by a naturalist on the "Challenger" (1879)].

Summary

A stonemason who has read Origin and Descent and defends CD’s theory against theological prejudice, would like to read CD’s other books but is too poor to afford them.

Summary

Sends regards from Capt. Charles Owen, who had collected beetles for CD.

Owen’s son is going to Oregon with Wallis Nash.

Summary

Has arranged for publication of his translation of Weismann.

S. H. Scudder article on sexual dimorphism in butterflies [Proc. Am. Acad. Arts & Sci. 12 (1877): 150–8].

Summary

Wishes to subscribe to RM’s translation of Weismann.

Has seen Scudder’s article.

A. R. Wallace’s article ["Animals and their native countries", Nineteenth Century 5 (1879): 247–59] is excellent.

Summary

£100 has arrived and LW will set to work.

Summary

GH no longer believes in the value of cross-fertilisation in plants.

Summary

Gives results of the experiments: the leaves in most cases make the water alkaline. It cannot be ammonia. He and his son, Francis, suspect potash, which is valued as a manure. Will be grateful for the analysis EF has offered.

Summary

Sends birthday wishes.

Comments on progress of CD’s theory in Germany. Mentions opposition of Rudolf Virchow and his reply Freie Wissenschaft und freie Lehre [1878].

Describes research trip to Brittany and Normandy.

Research on Challenger Radiolaria.

Summary

Birthday congratulations from the editors of Kosmos. They will mark the occasion with a special number of Kosmos.

Summary

Thanks KA and the other editors of Kosmos for the issue published in honour of his birthday. Sees there is much in it that will interest him greatly.

Summary

Birthday greetings.

Summary

Thanks ADeB for sending him Botanische Zeitung, but asks him to send it no more, as CD takes it regularly and has procured the volumes from the beginning.