Summary

Can no longer make out story of NW. American plants; consulting Asa Gray.

Questionable validity of seed-salting experiments.

Aristolochia and Viscum seem to shed pollen before flower opens.

Ray Society should only do translations.

Thomas Thomson in India has rediscovered Aldrovanda, a rare relative of Drosera.

Summary

[T. Bell Salter’s?] "hybrid" Epilobium a false claim.

Admires Huxley’s response to Falconer [see 1904].

Tristan da Cunha plant list, requested by CD, supports JDH’s position [on continental extension?].

Chilean plants not exceptional.

JDH considers parallels between Australian Alps and European plants strong evidence for multiple creations.

Summary

JDH’s arguments against transmutation: 1. Plants do not show the confusion he would expect; 2. Under clearly similar physical conditions we do not find same species.

JDH’s argument against migration: commonality of alpine species. Believes migration opposes facts of botanical distribution in Van Diemen’s Land and New Zealand; prefers continental extension theory.

Summary

JDH not happy with CD’s explanation of the absence of north temperate forms in the Southern Hemisphere, given his explanation for the spread of sub-arctic forms to the south. [CD’s note is in response to JDH’s criticism.]

Summary

Continued debate on formation of species as a result of retreat from glaciers.

JDH suggests internal powers of species modification, which he knows CD abhors.

Summary

Podostemaceae flowering under water.

Summary

Has done New Zealand flora calculations. Results support CD’s theory of necessity of crossing. Trees tend to have separate sexes.

Summary

JDH approves MS section on geographical distribution.

Never felt so shaky about species before.

His objections to some mechanisms of distribution that CD proposes.

Summary

Non-endemic Ascension Island plants brought by man, not wind-transported.

Bentham has found intermediates between oxlip and cowslip in Herefordshire.

JDH finds quantity of albumen in seeds is not variable within a species.

Summary

No one believes in Karsten.

Surprised by CD’s observations that illegitimate crosses within a species produce hybrid-like offspring.

JDH’s scepticism of Scott’s observations.

On proposing James Hector vs Julius von Haast for Royal Society; on learned society honours.

Summary

Oliver says H. E. Baillon found stamens on female flowers of Coelebogyne, but JDH and many botanists have never found any stamens.

Lyell wants to propose JDH for Copley Medal.

Summary

Continued objections to methods and conclusions of CD’s survey.

Summary

JDH cannot abide CD’s connection of wide-ranging species and "highness". Australian flora contradicts this in many ways.

Summary

Summary of JDH’s objections to CD’s survey of floras and conclusion that large genera vary more than small.

Summary

Busy with introductory essay to [The botany of the Antarctic voyage, pt III] Flora Tasmaniae [printed separately as On the flora of Australia (1859)].

Now explains greater abundance of European species in Tasmania than in Fuegia by CD’s "refrigeration" hypothesis.

Summary

Sends proofs [of "On the tendency of species to form varieties … ", read 1 July 1858, Collected papers 2: 3–19]. CD could publish his abstract [later the Origin] as a separate supplemental number of [Journal of the Linnean Society].

JDH has studied in detail CD’s manuscript on variable species in large and small genera and concurs with its consequences. Discusses methodological idiosyncrasies of systematists, e.g., Bentham, Robert Brown, and C. C. Babington, which complicate CD’s tabulations.

Summary

Would appreciate loan of CD’s chapter on transmigration across tropics, which may help with the difficulties of Australian distribution.

Still regards plant types as older than animal types.

The Cape of Good Hope and Australian temperate floras cannot be connected by the highlands of Abyssinia.

Summary

Working on "Insular floras" lecture for BAAS Nottingham meeting [see 5135].

Puzzled at distribution of Madeiran and Canaries plants and insects.

Supports Forbes’s Atlantis hypothesis [see 956], which he has reread and to which he will allude.

Wollaston disappointing on Madeiran insects.

Summary

Wollaston’s situation hopeless; he must go to Boulogne or Jersey to live. A friend will keep his collection and books together.

JDH’s opinion of Wollaston’s Coleoptera Hesperidum [1867].

Cannot read Duke of Argyll.

CD’s view of Asa Gray as foreign member of Royal Society; compares him to Candolle.

Summary

Embryology of plants of low systematic order. Comparative development begins only with first post-cotyledonary leaves.

Curt letter to JDH from George Henslow.