CHARLES DARWIN TO C. NAGELI. (Professor of Botany at Munich.) Down, June 12 [1866]. Dear Sir, I hope you will excuse the liberty which I take in writing to you. I have just read, though imperfectly, your 'Entstehung und Begriff,' and have been so greatly interested by it, that I have sent it to be translated, as I am a poor German scholar. I have just finished a new [4th] edition of my 'Origin,' which will be translated into German, and my object in writing to you is to say that if you should see this edition you would think that I had borrowed from you, without acknowledgment, two discussions on the beauty of flowers and fruit; but I assure you every word was printed off before I had opened your pamphlet. Should you like to possess a copy of either the German or English new edition, I should be proud to send one. I may add, with respect to the beauty of flowers, that I have already hinted the same views as you hold in my paper on Lythrum. Many of your criticisms on my views are the best which I have met with, but I could answer some, at least to my own satisfaction; and I regret extremely that I had not read your pamphlet before printing my new edition. On one or two points, I think, you have a little misunderstood me, though I dare say I have not been cautious in expressing myself. The remark which has struck me most, is that on the position of the leaves not having been acquired through natural selection, from not being of any special importance to the plant. I well remember being formerly troubled by an analogous difficulty, namely, the position of the ovules, their anatropous condition, etc. It was owing to forgetfulness that I did not notice this difficulty in the 'Origin.' (Nageli's Essay is noticed in the 5th edition.) Although I can offer no explanation of such facts, and only hope to see that they may be explained, yet I hardly see how they support the doctrine of some law of necessary development, for it is not clear to me that a plant, with its leaves placed at some particular angle, or with its ovules in some particular position, thus stands higher than another plant. But I must apologise for troubling you with these remarks. As I much wish to possess your photograph, I take the liberty of enclosing my own, and with sincere respect I remain, dear Sir, Yours faithfully, CH. DARWIN. [I give a few extracts from letters of various dates showing my father's interest, alluded to in the last letter, in the problem of the arrangement of the leaves on the stems of plants. It may be added that Professor Schwendener of Berlin has successfully attacked the question in his 'Mechanische Theorie der Blattstellungen,' 1878. TO DR. FALCONER. August 26 [1863].