1864.] ON PLANTS OF THE SAME SPECIES.' 479 



looking at the manner of fertilisation of your native Orchids, 

 and still more pleased to hear that you have been experi- 

 menting on Linum. I much hope that you may publish the 

 result of these experiments ; because I was told that the most 

 eminent French botanists of Paris said that my paper on 

 Primula was the work of imagination, and that the case was 

 so improbable they did not believe in my results."] 



C. Darwin to Asa Gray. 



April 19 [1864]. 



.... I received a little time ago a paper with a good 

 account of your Herbarium and Library, and a long time 

 previously your excellent review of Scott's ' Primulaceae,' and 

 I forwarded it to him in India, as it would much please him. 

 I was very glad to see in it a new case of Dimorphism (I for- 

 get just now the name of the plant) ; I shall be grateful to 

 hear of any other cases, as I still feel an interest in the sub- 

 ject. I should be very glad to get some seed of your dimor- 

 phic Plantagos ; for I cannot banish the suspicion that they 

 must belong to a very different class like that of the common 

 Thyme. * How could the wind, which is the agent of fertilisa- 

 tion, with Plantago, fertilise " reciprocally dimorphic " flowers 

 like Primula ? Theory says this cannot be, and in such cases 

 of one's own theories I follow Agassiz and declare, " that na- 

 ture never lies." I should even be very glad to examine the 

 two dried forms of Plantago. Indeed, any dried dimorphic 

 plants would be gratefully received. . . . 



Did my Lythrum paper interest you ? I crawl on at the 

 rate of two hours per diem, with ' Variation under Domestic- 

 ation.' 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



Down, November 26 [1S64]. 

 .... You do not know how pleased I am that you have 

 read my Lythrum paper; I thought you would not have time, 



* In this prediction he was right. See ' Forms of Flowers,' p. 307. 



