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LETTER 688. TO F. MULLER. Down, February 23rd, 1881.

Your letter has interested me greatly, as have so many during many past
years. I thought that you would not object to my publishing in "Nature"
(688/1. "Nature," March 3rd, 1881, page 409.) some of the more striking
facts about the movements of plants, with a few remarks added to show
the bearing of the facts. The case of the Phyllanthus (688/2. See
Letter 687.), which turns up its leaves on the wrong side, is most
extraordinary and ought to be further investigated. Do the leaflets
sleep on the following night in the usual manner? Do the same leaflets
on successive nights move in the same strange manner? I was particularly
glad to hear of the strongly marked cases of paraheliotropism. I shall
look out with much interest for the publication about the figs. (688/3.
F. Muller published on Caprification in "Kosmos," 1882.) The creatures
which you sketch are marvellous, and I should not have guessed that they
were hymenoptera. Thirty or forty years ago I read all that I could find
about caprification, and was utterly puzzled. I suggested to Dr.
Cruger in Trinidad to investigate the wild figs, in relation to their
cross-fertilisation, and just before he died he wrote that he had
arrived at some very curious results, but he never published, as I
believe, on the subject.

I am extremely glad that the inundation did not so greatly injure your
scientific property, though it would have been a real pleasure to me to
have been allowed to have replaced your scientific apparatus. (688/4.
See Letter 687.) I do not believe that there is any one in the world who
admires your zeal in science and wonderful powers of observation more
than I do. I venture to say this, as I feel myself a very old man, who
probably will not last much longer.

P.S.--With respect to Phyllanthus, I think that it would be a good
experiment to cut off most of the leaflets on one side of the petiole,
as soon as they are asleep and vertically dependent; when the pressure
is thus removed, the opposite leaflets will perhaps bend beyond their
vertically dependent position; if not, the main petiole might be a
little twisted so that the upper surfaces of the dependent and now
unprotected leaflets should face obliquely the sky when the morning
comes. In this case diaheliotropism would perhaps conquer the ordinary
movements of the leaves when they awake, and [assume] th