Summary

Sends CD a copy of her book [Botany for novices (1864?)], intended to encourage the young, especially ladies, to study nature.

Summary

CD would like to see Rhamnus, as an American species is dimorphic.

Sends red cowslip pollen to be measured.

Summary

References to and résumés of articles on climbing plants.

Summary

Proposes to support John Scott in research on relative fertility and self-incompatibility of plants. CD would pay him for a year or two but wants JDH to give him research facilities at Kew.

Summary

JDH explains why he cannot take Scott on at Kew.

John Tyndall cannot answer CD’s questions on glaciers. Edward Frankland’s ignorance. In JDH’s opinion, heaviness of winter snowfall is the greatest element in size of glaciers and this is a function of low mean temperature. Discusses descent of glaciers.

Summary

Marvels that seeds from the lump of clay on the partridge’s foot have germinated. At Zoological Society [J. E.?] Gray ridiculed him. Now Frank Buckland would like to see the specimen.

Summary

JDH has written to J. H. Balfour for a character reference for John Scott.

Summary

Reports on a strange breed of sheep at Aden,

a Brazilian plant naturalised in Ceylon,

the Australian Casuarina equisetum spreading in Taiwan,

and an excrescence on wing of several thrushes of Taiwan similar to a growth on wing of a Syrian species.

Summary

Sees difficulty of placing Scott at Kew. Suspects Balfour is prejudiced because Scott is a Darwinian.

CD’s former letter on Clematis [4403] blundered; work now being revised.

Summary

Asks how he can identify pollen-tubes.

Has succeeded in impregnating orchids of widely different genera with each other’s pollinia. "Is not this something new?"

Offers to exchange Catasetum for other varieties.

Summary

Enquires about the relationship of English grains to French milligrammes.

Summary

J. H. Balfour gives Scott excellent character reference, but says he is unfit either to superintend or be subordinate.

Herbert Spencer’s review of J. M. Schleiden is interesting [see 4457].

Summary

CD has thrown away injured partridge’s foot.

Summary

Calculates the relationship between grains and milligrams; asks his mother for a fruit tart and twelve napkins.

Summary

Discusses microscopic observation of pollen tubes.

Unable to exchange orchids because of his illness.

Summary

CD apologises for having asked JDH to help him with Scott and now seeks advice on how to break the news.

Summary

CD need not worry about having discarded the partridge’s foot.

Summary

Men of Scott’s Celtic temperament are very troublesome. Tries to dissuade CD from hiring him as a scientific gardener.

George Rolleston, not Spencer, wrote review of Schleiden [Nat. Hist. Rev. (1864): 187–99].

Summary

Lyell thinks an expedition should be sent to the caves in Borneo, supported by the sale of surplus specimens; thinks "our progenitors" may well be there.

Summary

Regrets that JS has left the [Edinburgh] Botanic Garden and that [J. D.] Hooker is not in a position to secure a foreign appointment for him. Offers financial assistance on the grounds of science.

Has sent JS a copy of the Reader.