Encloses strawberry blossoms used in his crossing experiments.
Showing 1–20 of 37 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.
Encloses strawberry blossoms used in his crossing experiments.
Sends CD seeds of Cattleya crispa as requested [see Collected papers 2: 77–8].
Anticipates success for his attempts to cross orchids artificially. Has not had a single seed germinate from a pod that was not produced by artificial crossing.
Conducted crosses on Gladiolus varieties exactly according to CD’s letter. Flowers of same variety are self-sterile, whether from the same plant or not.
Studying self-sterility, particularly in Oncidium, where abortion occurs consistently but stigma functions normally. His hybrid orchid crosses show sterility occurs capriciously. Thus it is not a "special endowment".
Disputes Asa Gray’s and Hermann Crüger’s view of rostellar germination.
Doubts absolute sterility of Catasetum.
Disappointed by results with homomorphic cowslips.
Provides evidence of self-sterility in Gladiolus.
Has observed three seed-leaves in some Dianthus seedlings.
Cannot cross, or grow from seed, Dielytra spectabilis.
JL is off to visit Scotch "kjökken möddings".
Hopes Lyell is not really vexed by his article.
Has seen some curious hybrid ducks and geese of Bartlett’s. Bartlett will do experiments suggested by CD when he has time.
Preparations under way to move to London account for delay in thanking CD for his review [Collected papers 2: 87–92].
His book is finished, and he is sending a copy to CD; owing to the great expense few copies will be sent to reviewers.
The war is nearly finished, "rebeldom is ""gone up"" ".
Thanks for CD’s Linum paper [Collected papers 2: 93–105].
Has not published much because he would be ignored as a gardener; hence he is looking for a foreign appointment.
Has prepared orchid sterility paper at CD’s suggestion [Trans. Bot. Soc. Edinburgh 7 (1863): 543–50].
Is ready to make some arrangement to repay CD’s bond. Has written to F. Ransome to help arrange repayment and wants CD to write his opinion of a fair scheme.
Hopes CD will finish and bring out his book on variation.
AG will publish extracts of H. W. Bates’s paper on mimetic analogy [Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 36 (1863): 279–94].
Thanks CD for specimens which show that an abnormality in one genus is normal in another, which bears on CD’s views on descent.
The ovule of Primula is amphitropous or what J. Georg Agardh calls apotropo-amphitropous [see Theoria systematis plantarum (1858), tab. 24, fig. 5–6].
Difference in plumage of Ardeola, a species of heron, in summer and winter. [See Descent 2: 190.]
Asks CD whether he knows of "anything worth looking at" that has appeared abroad on his theory of the origin of species.
Discusses having skull photographed and a cast made.
Thinks CD’s letter ["The doctrine of heterogeny", Collected papers 2: 78–80] will appear "with a clearer field and to better effect" if delayed a week, since next issue [of Athenæum] has Lyell’s reply to Hugh Falconer, and W. B. Carpenter’s report on the Abbéville jaw.
Was unable to see Ransome [to find out whether DTA’s shares in the patent had earned any income so he could repay CD] but believes Ransome’s work will be profitable. Bemoans his own constant financial misfortune and asks CD to give up the deed of his loan to him, on the promise that if the shares ever yield any income, CD will be paid.
Has done Primula polyanthus experiment CD suggested.