Accepts invitation for 23 June.
Showing 21–40 of 43 items
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.
Accepts invitation for 23 June.
Will take earlier train to Down.
Sends onion and mint seeds.
Sends packet of Ononis columnae seed and references to the species.
At CD’s request he is looking into the gardeners’ custom of separating all sweetpea varieties in order to obtain pure seed.
Observations on Ophrys plants and Thymus vulgaris. Encloses sketch of different forms of T. vulgaris [see Forms of flowers, p. 302].
Sends several plants with abortive anthers or bad pollen.
Sends Orchis.
Is coming to London.
Wrote to J. B. E. Bornet on CD’s behalf, declining the offer of seeds of Draba. But now Bornet writes that he is sending seeds to CD anyway [see 5592].
Corrects his previous description of the fertilisation of Indigofera.
Thanks for CD’s ["Fertilization of orchids", Collected papers 2: 138–56].
Although Thomas Meehan’s paper ["Variations in Epigaea repens", Proc. Philadelphia Acad. Nat. Sci. (1868): 153–6] shows great variability in this genus, JTM sees a need to qualify the generalisation that there is as much variation in the wild as under domestication. He knows no evidence for a constant proportion between variability in the wild and under cultivation.
Observations on correlation between leaf size and exposure to sun and shade.
Has evidence for two varieties of Ophrys apifera in England, which live in mutually exclusive colonies.
Leaflet variation at the tip of Lathyrus stems.
Sends seeds of Lathyrus and suggests an advantage of climbing plants is to shed their seeds in places secure from animals.
Contrary to F. Delpino, in JTM’s experience Ophrys aranifera is not sterile. However, seed germination is poor.
In a densely overgrown plot Convolvulus sabatius, not normally a twiner, becomes one.
Continues his extensive study on variability in Arbutus, and speculates on selection in fruit shape.
At Wallace’s suggestion he offers CD his observations on the seed-gathering habits of ants. Suggests their role in seed dispersal.
At work on the last part of his book [Contributions to the flora of Mentone (1867–71)].
Has found that Ophrys insectifera can reproduce asexually.
He will send his book [Harvesting ants and trap-door spiders (1873)]. Describes two new types of trap-door spider nests.
He does not accept Wallace’s definition of instinct because it excludes "inherited experience", i.e., "knowledge acquired by and transmitted through ancestors".
House-flies do not seem to have an instinctive fear of trap-door spiders.
Miss Forster gives him news of CD.
Sends his paper on Ophrys insectifera, translated into German by H. G. Reichenbach [Abh. Kais. Leopold.-Carol. Dtsch. Akad. Naturforsch. 33 (1870) no. 3], which shows the intermediates between O. aranifera and O. apifera. He has since gathered information on variation in Ophrys.
He will repeat the experiments in which CD found that formic acid vapour killed seeds [see 8866]. John Lindley describes effects of other acids on germination.
He has tabulated the large amount of variation in English Ophrys apifera.
CD has clarified the way to conduct the formic acid experiment.
His preliminary results with formic acid show that it inhibits germination of several kinds of seed. It also inhibits growing of mildew, which he speculates may facilitate germination.
He has added carbolic acid to the seed germination experiments and sends more results on the effect of formic acid. Formic acid inhibits mildew on dough but not on seeds.
Mildew never grows in ants’ nests.
Sends an account, from the Mishnah, of grain stored by ants.