[From Glion also he writes to Sir M. Foster:--]

I have been doing some very good work on the Gentians in the interests
of the business of being idle.

[The same subject recurs in the next letter:--]

Hotel Righi Vaudois, Glion, Switzerland, September 21, 1887.

My dear Hooker,

I saw in the "Times" yesterday the announcement of Mr. Symond's death.
I suppose the deliverance from so painful a malady as heart-disease is
hardly to be lamented in one sense; but these increasing gaps in one's
intimate circle are very saddening, and we feel for Lady Hooker and
you. My wife has been greatly depressed in hearing of Mrs. Carpenter's
fatal disorder. One cannot go away for a few weeks without finding some
one gone on one's return.

I got no good at the Maderaner Thal, so we migrated to our old quarters
at Arolla, and there I picked up in no time, and in a fortnight could
walk as well as ever. So if there are any adhesions they are pretty
well stretched by this time.

I have been at the Gentians again, and worked out the development of
the flower in G. purpurea and G. campestris. The results are very
pretty. They both start from a thalamifloral condition, then become
corollifloral, G. purpurea at first resembling G. lutea and G.
campestris, an Ophelia, and then specialise to the Ptychantha and
Stephanantha forms respectively.