Summary

AG has Cypripedium to send to CD.

Civil War and English feelings.

Summary

Sends CD West Ireland soundings.

More detail on his review "a la Lindley" [see 3797].

Bates’s paper ["Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 495–566] is capital.

Andrew Murray’s article plays into CD’s hands through sheer ignorance.

JDH is on Royal Society Council.

Has no recollection of applying natural selection to Polynesians. None but a German would dig out such a passage if it exists [see 3812].

Has caused Tyndall to modify his pseudo-geology.

Has not seen Duke of Argyll’s review [Edinburgh Rev. 116 (1862): 378–97]. [The Duke] did not understand Orchids the least little bit, nor the Origin, when JDH saw him.

Summary

Sends Asa Gray letter: "nearly as mad as ever in our English eyes".

Bates’s paper is admirable. The act of segregation of varieties into species was never so plainly brought forth.

CD is a little sorry that his present work is leading him to believe rather more in the direct action of physical conditions. Regrets it because it lessens the glory of natural selection and is so confoundedly doubtful.

JDH laid too much stress on importance of crossing with respect to origin of species; but certainly it is important in keeping forms stable.

If only Owen could be excluded from Council of Royal Society Falconer would be good to put in. CD must come down to London to see what he can do.

Falconer’s article in Journal of the Geological Society [18 (1862): 348–69] shows him coming round on permanence of species, but he does not like natural selection.

Sends Lythrum salicaria diagram.

Summary

Counted seeds by tens. Sends some.

Summary

Discusses whether or not "male" Acropera bear fruit. JS’s interpretation of Acropera pollination is ingenious. Pollen-tubes of some cleistogamous flowers germinate in the anthers.

Summary

So JDH did write the Gardeners’ Chronicle review [of Orchids]! CD guessed it from the little slap at R. Brown.

Dawson’s lecture has nothing new. Absurd to assume Greenland under water during whole of glacial period. Suggests absence of certain plants in Greenland due to seeds not surviving in sea-water. Suggests an experiment on vitality in sea-water of plants that might be in Greenland. Is more willing to admit a Norway–Greenland land connection than most other cases.

Urges JDH to warn Tyndall on his glacial theory of valleys in Switzerland.

Is working on cultivated plants.

Summary

Discusses AG’s article ["Dimorphism", Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 34 (1862): 419–20]. Does not like the terms "dioecio-dimorphism" or "precocious fertilisation". Discusses the separation of sexes in plants; cannot doubt that hermaphroditism is the aboriginal state.

Discusses AG’s observations on orchids and his review of Orchids [Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 34 (1862): 138–51].

Summary

Requests reference to Jules Planchon’s monograph on Linum [Lond. J. Bot. 6 (1847): 588–603; 7 (1848): 165–86, 473–501, 507–28].

Sends list of seeds, including Oxalis, Boraginaceae especially Alkanna.

Asa Gray says JDH wrote reviews of Orchids in Gardeners’ Chronicle.

His experiments amuse him after dull day’s work on vegetables and fruit-trees.

Leschenaultia formosa has exterior stigma, thus eminently requiring insect aid, and thus ensuring crossing almost inevitably.

Asks whether Samuel Haughton at Dublin who made important medical discovery could be the same who reviewed Origin so hostilely [in Nat. Hist. Rev. 7 (1860): 23–32]; if so, he can sneer at and abuse CD to his heart’s content.

Asa Gray as rabid as ever [on Civil War].

Summary

Returns Asa Gray letter. Gray has made a great blunder in his criticism of Oliver: he mistakes perpetuation of a variety for "propagation of variation". Confusion between "action of physical causes" and "effects of physical causes". Neither crossing nor natural selection has made so many divergent individuals, but simply variation. "If once you hold that natural selection can create a character your whole doctrine tumbles to the ground." CD’s failure to convey this, and the false doctrine that "like produces like" is at bottom of half the scientific infidelity to CD’s doctrine. There is something to the objection that CD has made a deus ex machina of natural selection since he neglects to dwell on the facts of infinite incessant variations.

Summary

Acknowledges receipt of £245 18s.

JH’s account of the Tomline estate gives CD some regret.

Summary

Agrees Max Müller’s book [see 3752] is interesting but cannot see how it will further his "cause".

A book by J. W. Colenso [The Pentateuch and book of Joshua critically examined, pt 1 (1862)] has just appeared and will "make a noise".

Would like some observations made on Cypripedium.

Will not publish yet on Lythrum as he must make many more crosses; the mid-styled is fertile with half of its own stamens.

Would like to try a few experiments on tendrils.

Summary

Praises JS’s experimenting.

Has he ever studied the relative fertility of varieties? CD very interested in this subject.

Discusses Acropera.

Wants to quote JS on Zea [Variation 1: 321].

CD sends his Primula paper [Collected papers 2: 45–63].

Summary

Asks correspondents whether any kinds of strawberries now cultivated have been raised from a cross between the wood or alpine strawberry and the scarlet, pine, or Chili strawberry.

Summary

JDH admits he wrote Gardeners’ Chronicle and Natural History Review articles on orchids [Gard. Chron. (1862): 789–90, 863, 910; Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 2 (1862): 371–6].

JDH’s objections to CD’s idea of how Greenland was repopulated. Temperate Greenland has as Arctic a flora as Arctic Greenland – a fact of astounding force. Why should certain Scandinavian species be absent? Migration by sea-currents can no more account for the present distribution in Greenland than can special creation.

Summary

Recommends H. W. Bates’s paper on butterflies of Amazonia ["Insect fauna of the Amazon valley", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 23 (1862): 495–566].

Lyell’s book [Antiquity of man (1863)] is eagerly awaited.

Summary

Sends cheque to CD for Down parish charities.

Summary

CD is mistaken in considering Acropera unisexual, with only male flowers [Orchids, pp. 203–10]. JS has successfully fertilised two A. loddigesii flowers. One is ripening. Dissection of the other shows the pollen accomplishes fertilisation without contacting any stigmatic surface. Abortive ovules found in flowers that did not become fertilised when pollinated. JS suggests Acropera has both unisexual male and hermaphrodite flowers.

Summary

[Apparently in reply to question in missing portion of 3825.] A written agreement is unnecessary, but a letter stating terms would prevent misundertanding. He will attempt to have a review of HWB’s paper published.

Summary

Examined Epilobium 20 or 30 years ago at Shrewsbury. In a flash remembered it as dimorphic, but had forgotten its name.

Summary

Gives reference to his observations on tendrils [Proc. Am. Acad. Arts & Sci. 4: 98–9].

Notes cases in which the pollen of the fertilising plant affects the form of the fruit of the fertilised plant, e.g., gourds and maize.

Discusses the Civil War and the attitudes of the English press.