28th, 1861, page 151, is given in Letter 590,
note.); he strikes me as a clever but d--d cock-sure man (as Lord
Melbourne said), and I have some doubts whether to be much trusted. I
suspect he has never recorded his experiment at the time with care. He
has made me indignant by the way he speaks of Gartner, evidently
knowing nothing of his work. I mean to try and pump him in the
"Cottage Gardener," and shall perhaps defend Gartner. He alludes to me
occasionally, and I cannot tell with what spirit. He speaks of "this Mr.
Darwin" in one place as if I were a very noxious animal.

Let me have a line about poor Henslow pretty soon.

(599/2. In a letter of May 18th, 1861, Darwin wrote again:--)

By the way, thanks about Beaton. I have now read more of his writings,
and one answer to me in "Cottage Gardener." I can plainly see that he is
not to be trusted. He does not well know his own subject of crossing.

LETTER 600. TO J.D. HOOKER.

(600/1. Part of this letter has been published in "Life and Letters,"
III., page 265.)

2, Hesketh Crescent, Torquay [1861].

...The beauty of the adaptation of parts seems to me unparalleled. I
should think or guess [that] waxy pollen was most differentiated. In
Cypripedium, which seems least modified, and a much exterminated group,
the grains are single. In all others, as far as I have seen, they are in
packets of four; and these packets cohere into many wedge-formed masses
in Orchis, into eight, four, and finally two. It seems curious that
a flower should exist which could, at most, fertilise only two other
flowers, seeing how abundant pollen generally is; this fact I look at
as explaining the perfection of the contrivance by which the pollen,
so important from its fewness, is carried from flower to flower. By the
way, Cephalanthera has single pollen-grains, but this seems to be a case
of degradation, for the rostellum is utterly aborted. Oddly, the
columns of pollen are here kept in place by very early penetration of
pollen-tubes into the edge of the stigma; nevertheless, it receives more
pollen by insect agency. Epithecia [Dichaea] has done me one good little
turn. I often speculated how the caudicle of Orchis had been formed.
(600/2. The gradation here suggested is thoroughly worked out in the
"Fertilisation of Orchids," Edition I., page 323, Edition II., page
257.) I had noticed slight clouds in the substance half way down; I
have now dissected them out, and I find they are pollen