480 'DIFFERENT FORMS OF FLOWERS [1868. 



and I have for long years looked at you as my Public, and 

 care more for your opinion than that of all the rest of the 

 world. I have done nothing which has interested me so 

 much as Lythrum, since making out the complemental males 

 cf Cirripedes. I fear that I have dragged in too much mis- 

 cellaneous matter into the paper. 



... I get letters occasionally, which show me that Nat- 

 ural Selection is making great progress in Germany, and 

 some amongst the young in France. I have just received a 

 pamphlet from Germany, with the complimentary title of 

 " Darwinische Arten-Enstehung-Humbug" ! 



Farewell, my best of old friends, 



C. DARWIN. 



C. Darwin to Asa Gray. 



September 10, [1867 ?] 



.... The only point which I have made out this sum- 

 mer, which could possibly interest you, is that the common 

 Oxlip found everywhere, more or less commonly in England, 

 is certainly a hybrid between the primrose and cowslip ; 

 whilst the P. elatior (Jacq.), found only in the Eastern Coun- 

 ties, is a perfectly distinct and good species ; hardly distin- 

 guishable from the common oxlip, except by the length of the 

 seed-capsule relatively to the calyx. This seems to me 

 rather a horrid fact for all systematic botanists. . . . 



C. Darwin to F. Hildebrand. 



Down, November 16, 1868. 



MY DEAR SIR, I wrote my last note in such a hurry 

 from London, that I quite forgot what I chiefly wished to 

 say, namely to thank you for your excellent notices in the 

 ' Bot. Zeitung ' of my paper on the offspring of dimorphic 

 plants. The subject is so obscure that I did not expect that 

 any one would have noticed my paper, and I am accordingly 

 very much pleased that you should have brought the subject 

 before the many excellent naturalists of Germany. 



