I have just made out my first grass, hurrah! hurrah! I must confess that fortune favours the bold, for, as good luck would have it, it was the easy Anthoxanthum odoratum: nevertheless it is a great discovery; I never expected to make out a grass in all my life, so hurrah! It has done my stomach surprising good...
CHARLES DARWIN TO J.D. HOOKER. Down, [June?] 15th, [1855].
My dear Hooker,
I just write one line to say that the Hedysarum is come QUITE SAFELY, and thank you for it.
You cannot imagine what amusement you have given me by naming those three grasses: I have just got paper to dry and collect all grasses. If ever you catch quite a beginner, and want to give him a taste of Botany, tell him to make a perfect list of some little field or wood. Both Miss Thorley and I agree that it gives a really uncommon interest to the work, having a nice little definite world to work on, instead of the awful abyss and immensity of all British Plants.
Adios. I was really consummately impudent to express my opinion "on the retrograde step" ("To imagine such enormous geological changes within the period of the existence of now living beings, on no other ground but to account for their distribution, seems to me, in our present state of ignorance on the means of transportal, an almost retrograde step in science."—Extract from the paper on 'Salt Water and Seeds' in "Gardeners' Chronicle", May 26, 1855.), and I deserved a good snub, and upon reflection I am very glad you did not answer me in "Gardeners' Chronicle".