[[1]] Kew Ja[nuar]y 12th /[18]58 My dear Asa Gray Yours of the 19th has just arrived & gratified me very much. I am, I need not tell you, in the habit of saying at least as much as I think, when I have fault to make or find for I hate to let it be supposed that I have held back any growl or grudge or store up offence in hat or pocket. The fact is that my dear old Father as he gets older gets suspicious, & finds it more difficult to take broad & unprejudiced views of such matters. It often goes to my soul to have to take a different view from his, & to have to set to work systematically to sap his opinion or to alter his course: & he is always struggling against this inferiority of the flesh, giving into me grandly from the full consciousness of his tendency but not from feeling that he is wrong even when he is so (for of course it is often me) in the special case under discussion. His disposition conduct is noble in these matters, feeling as he often acknowledges that his disposition is to be conquered. I refer especially to suspicions of others that are often unworthy of him, & suggest courses of conduct the opposite of what he would be natural to him. In these cases (as in the journals) he is always ready to make the noble sacrifice, whilst it is impossible [[2]] to persuade him that there were no good grounds for an opposite course. The journal was after all the most painful passage I ever had with him, for I knew in my soul that he could not help thinking that his friends were hard on his exertions, that they were unreasonably fault finding, that I took no interest & grudged the trouble I took, & exalted my labour above his. Dear old Dad! he is now working away at his Ferns hard & all the better & with more zest, & though I sigh every time I use the journal & half repent in thoughtless mood its being discontinued, I am most heartily thankful that we have nothing more to do with it, & heartily thank you for your kind cooperation -- but for you indeed I should never have carried it out. I have not shown you[r] last to my father, as it will only rake up an old an old sore and the subject is better dropped for ever. If you want any genera or species of Rubiaceae to examine I will send them over without delay -- keep a list -- by you till the end of your Bot[anical]. work & I will send all at once or bring them if I go over this year, though I would rather put off my going till next. Except indeed the Leviathan would take an unprecedented trip& offer me a passage which I could not resist! I am deeply interested in your notes on [[3]] vitality & consulted Huxley, whose lucubrations, I send you, I never talked the matter over with you him: for in fact my notions on these subjects are very crude. I have been cogitating over dedoublement I know nothing whatever about that branch of Botany -- I do not know what side you take -- but intend to read it up of course I once knew but have forgotten all about it. What I want to direct your attention to is "dedoublement" in the abstract. -- What foundation is there for it: is it anything but an unphilosophical idea (I hope I am not hitting you, on my honor I do not know but that you may have snubbed it yourself). Some dogs have an additional claw if I remember right, but surely no zoologist would call that a dedoublement of one of the usual 3 claws. I have argued the point for half a minute or so with Bentham today & indeed the oddity of the theory only struck me on accidentally turning over the pages of the journal & finding him calling accounting for the increased stamina of Megacarpaea by dedoublement but I find he can give me no rational explanation of dedoublement, it is "nomen et praeterea nihil"*1 with him. I asked him if he supposed Goliath's sixth finger & toe was a dedoublement, or a bicephalous childs head[.] If you have a stamen too few no one calls that the remaining one, a halfling of an two theoretically existing stamens -- I can understand an intercalated stamen or series of stamens, or a halved stamen; but that one should be two passes my philosophy. quite as much as that two should be only one [[4]] I am glad you have taken up the Balanophoreae matter & that of high & low specialization. I hope you note that I do not commit myself to the theory of perfection being expressed by consolidation but state all hypothetically. I wish I could see my way clearly through the maze of high & low amongst [one word crossed out, illeg.] Dicotyledonous exogens. Formerly I felt inclined to exalt Filiaceae, Malvaceae & Euphorbiaceae & to assume as the highest type of flower that which has 1) complete series of organs whorls 2) those organs [1 word crossed out, illeg.] whorls all high[?] distinct from one another each other 3. all series Each whorl being of numerous members parts. 4 Each part member being highly specialized 5. Each carpel to contain many perfect ovules & albumeneous[sic] dicot. -- seeds -- thus in short returning to D[e]. C[andolle]. -- still the question remains is a large imperfect group to be placed at the top of the vegetable ladder because one or a few of its members presents these attributes in greater degree than any other vegetable does. -- this cannot be conceded & so the whole fabric falls to the ground. -- destroy all Euphorbs: Except the monandrous genus Euphorbia & all clue to its affinities & value are lost. We must therefore turn to higher considerations than mere organic complexity & perfection of whorls & make these last secondary -- where the physiology of the reproductive organs at once suggests itself & Gymnosperms jump up from the bottom of the scale to the top! for they superadd [[5]] to the perfect phenogamic reproductive apparatus an exaggeration of that of the highest Cryptogam, & this without showing the slightest trace of low developement[sic] in trunk, embryo pollen or ovule, & without displaying any of the low peculiarities of which keep Cryptogams below Phaenogams, except always the want of a stigma which does not imply however any modification of pollen or pollen tube!!! [Arthur] Henfrey has just been working at Gnetum & has found the corpuscula[?], he tells me that between the 2 & 3 coats of the ovule (proceeding from the outside) hair-like processes are developed after fecundation at the base of the ovule; arillus--like, -- thus seeming to prove the 2 outer coats to be pericarpial! -- this is very important -he further suspects that Gnetum takes 7 years to ripen its seeds. I am just now atrociously busy, as, if you knew anything about me, you would know by this long letter. I am in the middle of hateful E[ast]. I[ndia]. C[ompany]. Ass[istan]t Surgeon competitive examination papers, & doing a Royal Soc[iety]. Report for Livingstone's exped[ition] takes out a good naturalist (to die of fever)[.] You are the[sic] almost the only one who has described the fruit of Sambucus correctly. By the way I have been poking at ovules Viburnum, Caprifol[iaceae]. Conv[olvulaceae]. Aral[iaceae]. Umbelli[ferae]. Rubiaceae & find all to have ovules with one consolidated coat -- [thus] or often [diagrammatic sketches of ovules appear here labelled: Viburnum, Section, Cornus] [[6]] a, in both these genera is the first developed & only coat, as an annulus, & it never grows beyond this but is carried up to the apex of the ovule in this form. Hence it is either an ovule with connate[?] coat, or an ovule which grows from behind the origin of the coat. Again is Brown right in defining Lonicerae as having raphe extrorsee -- it is raphe lateralis in this as in all other ovules in a sufficiently young state -- only in Lonicera (& very many others) it remains lateral. I have a great idea that ovule structure will lead to affinities but not ovule position & insertion direction which depends too much on evolution of ovary cavity. I have been studying Chimonanthus & am satisfied of its being nearer Monimiaceae & Annonads than Rosaceae. -- but oddly enough the [[7]] Monims, & Calycanths are in one respect reciprocals thus Monims recede from the great Annonad[?] or Ranunculaceae alliance in the definite gamopetalous calyx (in just like being calycifloral in short) whereas it is just in not being calycifloral that Chimonanthus differs from Rosaceae! -- the petals, & stamen of Chimonanthus are inserted on a torus as much as in Nymphaea & Co. With Combretaceae which have canolidded[sic?] carpels the alliance is nil -- indeed Combretaceae have little to do where they are placed. -- The stamens of Chimon[anthus]. are not Rosaceous nor any thing[sic] near it, & the inner abortive stamina are just the ditto of Eupomatia, to which the genus is most closely allied in floral structure -- the absence of albumen is an ugly fact but Nelumbium matches that. Then there is the smell, dotted wood, ternary tendency, structure & color of petals (like Hyalostemma). & graduated floral whorls. [[8]] Cumming's Philophs 2d[?] No. 638 is not named it differs from all Morindas known to me from very long petioles. I send fruit of Ceylon [Sri Lanka] Eupyrena. Bentham recommends you to his notes on Rubiaceae in Linnean XXIII. By all means send Linn[ean] Jour[nal] y[ou]r. notes on Timonius. Plenty of room anent ovules of Morinda. Bentham says "I cannot lie -- I have no record of having "examined them & do not recollect -- some "blunder or clerical error". Bentham has not "Ixora[?] Bahiensis Affinia" &c I have turned up your notes on dedoublement in Gen N. Am. I see you go the whole hog with Duchartre worse luck -- it is to me incroyable. I do not see a ghost of evidence. I have not yet received proof of y[ou]r paper on Magnoli[a] ovules to correct. I have charged Bennett to let me have it. Ever in grievous haste | y[ou]r aff[ectionate] | J D Hooker [signature] ENDNOTES 1. Latin phrase which translates as: "name and nothing more". 2. The text which runs from here to the end of the paragraph is written vertically down the right margin of this page. Please note that work on this transcript is ongoing. Users are advised to study electronic image(s) of this document where possible.