Chapter CCCLXX: Letter 738: TO J.D. HOOKER. December 20th 1873

I find that it is no use going on with my experiments on the evil effects of water on bloom-divested leaves. Either I erred in the early autumn or summer in some incomprehensible manner, or, as I suspect to be the case, water is only injurious to leaves when there is a good supply of actinic rays. I cannot believe that I am all in the wrong about the movements of the leaves to shoot off water.

The upshot of all this is that I want to keep all the plants from Kew until the spring or early summer, as it is mere waste of time going on at present.