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

Has had 16 in the household ill.

Wants to meet JL.

Praises JL’s paper ["Ancient lake-habitations of Switzerland", Nat. Hist. Rev. n.s. 2 (1862): 26–51].

Summary

Sends additional notes.

Summary

Discusses a crossing experiment.

Has been counting the seeds in pods [of Lythrum?].

Summary

Thanks TCE for telling him of his crossed pigs. When they are grown, he would like to know whether they resemble each other.

Doubts the half-bred Gallus sonnerati will be productive, though he was assured many years ago that such a fertile half-breed once occurred.

Summary

Discusses differences between Asa Gray’s view and his own on crossing. A common effect is the obliteration of incipient varieties. There is heavy evidence against new characters arising from crossing wild forms, "only intermediate races are then produced". Innate vital forces are somehow led to act differently as a result of direct effect of physical conditions. Astonished by JDH’s statement that every difference might have occurred without selection. CD agrees, but JDH’s manner of putting it astonished him. CD says, "think of each of a thousand seeds bringing forth its plant, and then each a thousand … I cannot even grapple with idea". Responds to JDH’s and Lyell’s feeling that he made too much of a deus ex machina out of natural selection. [Letter actually dated 20 Nov but is certainly after 3831.] [wrong field?]

Summary

Floral structure of Melastoma. Asks AG to observe position of pistils in lately-opened flowers of different plants.

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

On THH’s Lectures to working men.

Work by Ferdinand J. Cohn on the contractile tissue of plants ["Über contractile Gewebe im Pflanzenreich" Abh. Schlesischen Ges. Vaterl. Cult. 1 (1861)] seems important. CD has come to the conclusion that there must be some substance in plants analogous to the supposed diffused nervous matter in lower animals.

[Part of P.S. missing from original.]

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

Thanks for JDH’s letter [3725].

Has become interested in experimenting on Drosera.

Observations on the ovaria of Cruciferae.

Summary

Hooker has written about WED’s going to Kew.

Summary

Both JDH’s and Bates’s letters are excellent. JDH has said all that can be said against direct effect of conditions, but CD still sticks to his own and Bates’s side. CD should have done what JDH suggests (since naturally he is pleased to attribute little to conditions) – viz., started on the fundamental principle that variation is innate and stated that afterwards, perhaps, this principle would be made explicable. Variation will show that "use and disuse" have some effect. Does not believe in perfect reversion. Demurs at JDH’s "centrifugal variation"; the doctrine of the good of diversification amply accounts for variation being centrifugal.

The wonderful mechanism of Mormodes ignea.

Summary

Would like to go to Cambridge [for BAAS meeting]. Reminisces about his student days.

Pleased that WDF likes his book [Orchids]. At one time CD agreed with Lyell that he was an ass to publish it.

Working on dimorphism and sensibility of other plants.

Summary

Asks GB’s help to clear up discrepancies between his and John Lindley’s observations on pollination of Melastomataceae.

Summary

Cares more for dimorphism now than for orchids. Today saw the three forms of Lythrum, which means there should be 18 different practicable crosses.

Summary

Son [Leonard] ill with scarlet fever. Also Mrs Darwin.

Intends to give up work on Drosera until Variation is done.

Summary

Thanks for information on domestic animals of Indians.

Glad Murray thinks well of MS of The naturalist on the river Amazons.

CD working on proofs of Orchids.

Summary

Finds JL’s facts on the diving insect that remains four hours under water new and interesting [see "On two aquatic Hymenoptera", Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. 24 (1864): 135–42].

Summary

Cannot aid TWW with respect to bees from East Indies. Suggests he write to Edward Blyth.

Thanks him for getting query on variation in bees circulated in Germany.