ed that you did not more
strongly insist on this point.

I shall be still more surprised if you do not ultimately come to the
same belief with me, as shown by so many beautiful contrivances,--that
all plants require, from some unknown cause, to be occasionally
fertilised by pollen from a distinct individual.

(PLATE: FRITZ MULLER.)

2.XI.II. CORRESPONDENCE WITH FRITZ MULLER, 1865-1881.

(671/1. The letters from Darwin to Muller are given as a separate group,
instead of in chronological sequence with the other botanical letters,
as better illustrating the uninterrupted friendship and scientific
comradeship of the two naturalists.)

LETTER 671. TO F. MULLER. Down, October 17th [1865].

I received about a fortnight ago your second letter on climbing plants,
dated August 31st. It has greatly interested me, and it corrects and
fills up a great hiatus in my paper. As I thought you could not object,
I am having your letter copied, and will send the paper to the Linnean
Society. (671/2. "Notes on some of the Climbing Plants near Desterro"
[1865], "Linn. Soc. Journ." IX., 1867.) I have slightly modified the
arrangement of some parts and altered only a few words, as you write as
good English as an Englishman. I do not quite understand your account of
the arrangement of the leaves of Strychnos, and I think you use the word
"bracteae" differently to what English authors do; therefore I will get
Dr. Hooker to look over your paper.

I cannot, of course, say whether the Linnean Society will publish your
paper; but I am sure it ought to do so. As the Society is rather poor,
I fear that it will give only a few woodcuts from your truly admirable
sketches.

LETTER 672. TO F. MULLER.

(672/1. In Darwin's book on Climbing Plants, 1875 (672/2. First given
as a paper before the Linnean Society, and published in the "Linn. Soc.
Journ." Volume IX.,), he wrote (page 205): "The conclusion is forced on
our minds that the capacity of revolving, on which most climbing plants
depend, is inherent, though undeveloped, in almost every plant in the
vegetable Kingdom"--a conclusion which was verified in the "Power of
Movement in Plants." The present letter is interesting in referring
to Fritz Muller's observations on the "revolving nutation," or
circumnutation of Alisma macrophylla and Linum usitatissimum, the latter
fact having been discovered by F. Muller's daughter Rosa. This
was probably the earliest observation on the circumnutatio