548 LETTERS TO DARWIN AND OTHERS. [1866, 



What do you intend for this summer ? A Conti- 

 nental excursion ? 



Ever, my dear Bentham, most cordially yours, 



A. GRAY. 



Dr. Farlow, in his memoir in " Proceedings of the 

 American Academy," speaks of the great interest which 

 Dr. Gray took at this time in observing tendrils and 

 climbing plants. The glass corridor then connecting 

 the herbarium and his study was very much occupied 

 by climbers, and notes were constantly taken of times of 

 , revolution, etc. He says, " Dr. Gray hardly ever 

 passed in or out of the herbarium without stroking 

 (patting them on the back by way of encouraging them, 

 it almost seemed) the tendrils of the climbers on the 

 walls and porch; and on the announcement that 

 a student had discovered another case of cross-fertil- 

 ization in the garden, he would rush out bare-headed 

 and breathless, like a schoolboy, to see the thing with 

 his own critical eyes." 



TO CHARLES DARWIN. 



May 7, 1866. 



I am so delighted to get a letter from you, written 

 with your own hand, and to see that you can work 

 again a little. 



I have no new facts about the influence of pollen 

 on fruits, nor about influence of grafts. 



I have got a little plant of Bignonia capreolata 

 growing here. I punched a lot of holes into the shady 

 side of a lath ; the tendrils thrust their ends in ; also 

 into a cornice, but did not stay ; either the movement 

 of the stem or tendril, or, at length, the shortening 

 of the body of the tendril by coiling, which it does 



