Difficulty of distinguishing varieties and species. Did HCW suggest a printed list that might help?
Polymorphic genera.
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The Charles Darwin Collection
The Darwin Correspondence Project is publishing letters written by and to the naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882). Complete transcripts of letters are being made available through the Project’s website (www.darwinproject.ac.uk) after publication in the ongoing print edition of The Correspondence of Charles Darwin (Cambridge University Press 1985–). Metadata and summaries of all known letters (c. 15,000) appear in Ɛpsilon, and the full texts of available letters can also be searched, with links to the full texts.
Difficulty of distinguishing varieties and species. Did HCW suggest a printed list that might help?
Polymorphic genera.
Discusses the possibility of "convergence" occurring; believes it could be only very limited.
Asks HCW’s help with his experiments on Lythrum salicaria, for which he needs flowers of the rare Lythrum hyssopifolia.
Thanks HCW for Lythrum specimens.
CD has at last finished his Lythrum paper. ["Three forms of Lythrum", Collected papers 2: 106–31.]
Gives CD an instance of facts that can be read either way as to whether a plant (Veronica humifusa) is a species or a variety.
Cover containing some seeds mentioned in the letter to H. C. Watson, 28 May [1864], f.2 (S 4512).
Notes by HCW on the Origin dealing especially with divergence and convergence. Believes there is some natural tendency to converge into groups in opposition to divergence generated by natural selection.
Returns reviews of Origin.
F. J. Pictet [Arch. Sci. Phys. & Nat. n.s. 7 (1860): 231–55] goes further than he himself realises.
Naturalists will resist CD’s views until faith in certain "impassable" barriers between existent species is shaken.
Gives CD an instance of convergence.
Distribution of varieties and subspecies.
George Maw’s review of the Origin [Zoologist 19 (1861): 7577–611].
The Primula experiments of J. Sidebotham; HCW’s distrust of the results [see J. Sidebotham, "Specific identity of the cowslip and the primrose", Phytologist 3 (1849): 703–5].
Taeas [?] allied to L. hyssopifolia. [Cover containing packets of seed specimens.] Mentioned in the letter to H. C. Watson, 28 May [1864], f.2 (fS 4512).