Darwin. London, 1879.
See "Life and Letters," III., pages 218-20.)

Thanks for case of sleeping Crotalaria--new to me. I quite agree to
every word you say about Ball's lecture (754/2. "On the Origin of the
Flora of the European Alps," "Geogr. Soc. Proc." Volume I., 1879,
page 564. See Letter 395, Volume II.)--it is, as you say, like Sir W.
Thomson's meteorite. (754/3. In 1871 Lord Kelvin (Presidential Address
Brit. Assoc.) suggested that meteorites, "the moss-grown fragments from
the ruins of another world," might have introduced life to our planet.)
It is really a pity; it is enough to make Geographical Distribution
ridiculous in the eyes of the world. Frank will be interested about the
Auriculas; I never attended to this plant, for the powder did [not] seem
to me like true "bloom." (754/4. See Francis Darwin, on the relation
between "bloom" on leaves and the distribution of the stomata. "Linn.
Soc. Journ." Volume XXII., page 114.) This subject, however, for the
present only, has gone to the dogs with me.

I am sorry to hear of such a struggle for existence at Kew; but I have
often wondered how it is that you are all not killed outright.

I can most fully sympathise with you in your admiration of your little
girl. There is nothing so charming in this world, and we all in this
house humbly adore our grandchild, and think his little pimple of a nose
quite beautiful.

LETTER 755. TO G. BENTHAM. Down, February 16th, 1880.

I have had real pleasure in signing Dyer's certificate. (755/1. As a
candidate for the Royal Society.) It was very kind in you to write to me
about the Orchideae, for it has pleased me to an extreme degree that I
could have been of the least use to you about the nature of the parts.
They are wonderful creatures, these orchids, and I sometimes think with
a glow of pleasure, when I remember making out some little point in
their method of fertilisation. (755/2. Published in "Life and Letters,"
III., page 288.) With respect to terms, no doubt you will be able to
improve them greatly, for I knew nothing about the terms as used in
other groups of plants. Could you not invent some quite new term for
gland, implying viscidity? or append some word to gland. I used for
cirripedes "cement gland."

Your present work must be frightfully difficult. I looked at a few dried
flowers, and could make neither heads nor tails of them; and I well
remember wondering what you would do with them when you came to the
gro