4 l8 GROWTH OF THE 'ORIGIN.' [1855. 



C. Darwin to J. D. Hooker. 



June 5th, 1855. 



.... Miss Thorley * and I are doing a little Botanical 

 work ! for our amusement, and it does amuse me very much, 

 viz., making a collection of all the plants, which grow in a field, 

 which has been allowed to run waste for fifteen years, but 

 which before was cultivated from time immemorial ; and we 

 are also collecting all the plants in an adjoining and similar 

 but cultivated field ; just for the fun of seeing what plants 

 have arrived or died out. Hereafter we shall want a bit of 

 help in naming puzzlers. How dreadfully difficult it is to 

 name plants. 



What a remarkably nice and kind letter Dr. A. Gray has 

 sent me in answer to my troublesome queries ; I retained 

 your copy of his ' Manual ' till I heard from him, and when I 

 have answered his letter, I will return it to you. 



I thank you much for Hedysarum : I do hope it is not 

 very precious, for as I told you it is for probably a most fool- 

 ish purpose. I read somewhere that no plant closes its leaves 

 so promptly in darkness, and I want to cover it up daily for 

 half an hour, and see if I can teach it to close by itself, or 



more easily than at first in darkness I cannot make 



out why you would prefer a continental transmission, as I 

 think you do, to carriage by sea. I should have thought 

 you would have been pleased at as many means of trans- 

 mission as possible. For my own pet theoretic notions, it 

 is quite indifferent whether they are transmitted by sea or 

 land, as long as some tolerably probable way is shown. But 

 it shocks my philosophy to create land, without some other 

 and independent evidence. Whenever we meet, by a very 

 few words I should, I think, more clearly understand your 

 views. . . . 



I have just made out my first grass, hurrah ! hurrah ! I 

 must confess that fortune favours the bold, for, as good luck 



* A lady who was for many years a governess in the family. 



