whole, I believe, lodgings will answer best, for then I shall have a
secure solitary retreat to rest in.

I am extremely glad I sent the Laburnum (581/2. This refers to the
celebrated form known as Cytisus Adami, of which a full account is given
in "Variation of Animals and Plants," Volume I., Edition II., page 413.
It has been supposed to be a seminal hybrid or graft-hybrid between C.
laburnum and C. purpureus. It is remarkable for bearing "on the same
tree tufts of dingy red, bright yellow, and purple flowers, borne on
branches having widely different leaves and manner of growth." In a
paper by Camuzet in the "Annales de la Societe d'Horticulture de Paris,
XIII., 1833, page 196, the author tries to show that Cytisus Adami is
a seminal hybrid between C. alpinus and C. laburnum. Fuchs ("Sitz. k.
Akad. Wien," Bd. 107) and Beijerinck ("K. Akad. Amsterdam," 1900) have
spoken on Cytisus Adami, but throw no light on the origin of the hybrid.
See letters to Jenner Weir in the present volume.): the raceme grew in
centre of tree, and had a most minute tuft of leaves, which presented
no unusual appearance: there is now on one raceme a terminal bilateral
[i.e., half yellow, half purple] flower, and on other raceme a single
terminal pure yellow and one adjoining bilateral flower. If you would
like them I will send them; otherwise I would keep them to see whether
the bilateral flowers will seed, for Herbert (581/3. Dean Herbert.) says
the yellow ones will. Herbert is wrong in thinking there are no somewhat
analogous facts: I can tell you some, when we meet. I know not whether
botanists consider each petal and stamen an individual; if so, there
seems to me no especial difficulty in the case, but if a flower-bud is a
unit, are not their flowers very strange?

I have seen Dillwyn in the "Gardeners' Chronicle," and was disgusted
at it, for I thought my bilateral flowers would have been a novelty for
you.

(581/4. In a letter to Hooker, dated June 2nd, 1847, Darwin makes a bold
suggestion as to floral symmetry:--)

I send you a tuft of the quasi-hybrid Laburnum, with two kinds of
flowers on same stalk, and with what strikes [me] as very curious
(though I know it has been observed before), namely, a flower
bilaterally different: one other, I observe, has half its calyx purple.
Is this not very curious, and opposed to the morphological idea that a
flower is a condensed continuous spire of leaves? Does it not look as
if flowers were n