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Darwin, C. R. in correspondent 
Watson, H. C. in correspondent 
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From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
Date:
[17 July 1861]
Source of text:
DAR 185: 49
Summary:

Difficulty of distinguishing varieties and species. Did HCW suggest a printed list that might help?

Polymorphic genera.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
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From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
Date:
[26 Aug 1855]
Source of text:
DAR 185: 53
Summary:

On geographical distribution of plants. Plant systematics and natural classification.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
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From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
Date:
[after 10 June 1856]
Source of text:
DAR 185: 52
Summary:

Do the plants that are common to Europe and North America nearly all live north of the Arctic Circle? CD bases his question on HCW’s "capital" comparison between relations of Europe to North America and Europe to E. Asia if the intervening land had been submerged. CD has been led to speculate that in the mid-Pliocene the organisms now living in middle Europe and northern U. S. lived within the Arctic Circle. Subsequent movements of this flora with advance and retreat of glaciers would explain present distribution better than Forbes’s vast submergences.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
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From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
Date:
[5–11 Jan 1860]
Source of text:
DAR 47: 136a (verso); The University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections (Lyell collection Coll-203/A3/5: 77–87)
Summary:

Discusses the possibility of "convergence" occurring; believes it could be only very limited.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
Date:
8 [Aug 1862]
Source of text:
Archives of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library, Harvard University (bMs 7.10.2)
Summary:

Asks HCW’s help with his experiments on Lythrum salicaria, for which he needs flowers of the rare Lythrum hyssopifolia.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Charles Robert Darwin
To:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
Date:
28 May [1864]
Source of text:
DAR 185: 51
Summary:

Thanks HCW for Lythrum specimens.

CD has at last finished his Lythrum paper. ["Three forms of Lythrum", Collected papers 2: 106–31.]

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
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From:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[after 24 July 1861]
Source of text:
DAR 47: 162
Summary:

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.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
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From:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[16 May 1864]
Source of text:
DAR 142: 94
Summary:

Cover containing some seeds mentioned in the letter to H. C. Watson, 28 May [1864], f.2 (S 4512).

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[19 Nov 1854]
Source of text:
DAR 205.9: 402
Summary:

In response to CD’s query, HCW says he cannot supply "any list of species as the flora of a single and sterile soil". Suggests a possible source of information, and provides some figures for Britain, but these apply to diverse soils.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
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From:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
20 Nov [1854]
Source of text:
DAR 205.4: 101
Summary:

Sends a count of the number of species of flowering plants and ferns on the islands of Fayal and Flores in the Azores.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
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From:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
11 July [1855]
Source of text:
DAR 181: 27
Summary:

Returns CD’s list of Azores plants with information on the distribution of the species added. Encloses a list, extracted from CD’s list, of those plants common to Europe and the Azores that were probably not introduced by man.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
13 Aug 1855
Source of text:
DAR 98: A5–A6, DAR 9: 15A
Summary:

Is having difficulties marking close species on the list of British plants.

In all his attempts to advance geographical botany he is stopped by the "application and signification of the word ""species"" " the use of which is both "indefinite and variable". He encloses his list of "Categories of Species".

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
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From:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
17 Aug 1855
Source of text:
DAR 181: 28
Summary:

Sends a catalogue of plants [missing] with the close species marked.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
23 Aug 1855
Source of text:
DAR 181: 29
Summary:

Close species in large and small genera.

Artificiality of botanical classification.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
2 Oct 1855
Source of text:
DAR 181: 30
Summary:

Expresses his general opinion on the relative closeness of species in large and small genera. Warns that the size of a genus is dependent upon the locality and extent of the flora studied, that definitions of close species are not consistent, and that peculiarities of botanical classification will influence any attempt to assess the comparative closeness of species in different genera.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
11 Oct 1855
Source of text:
DAR 47: 163a–b
Summary:

Sends London catalogue of British plants with close species marked.

Charges E. Forbes with fraudulent appropriation of others’ work.

Comments on, and cites possible cases of, CD’s imagined rule that individuals of one or more species in a genus vary in some of those characters by which the species of that genus are distinguished.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
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From:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
8 Nov 1855
Source of text:
DAR 181: 31
Summary:

Artificiality of orders and genera in botany.

Difficulties in numerical analysis of close species in large and small genera.

HCW has "pretty strong bias towards the view that species are not immutably distinct".

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
[after 23 Mar 1858]
Source of text:
DAR 45: 16–17
Summary:

Extracts from MS of vol. 4 of HCW’s Cybele Britannica [1847–59] showing the diversity of views on species among botanists.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
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From:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
5 June 1856
Source of text:
DAR 181: 32
Summary:

Answers CD’s questions about plants common to U. S. and Britain and their distribution in Europe.

Variability of agrarian weeds.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project
From:
Hewett Cottrell Watson
To:
Charles Robert Darwin
Date:
10 June 1856
Source of text:
DAR 181: 33
Summary:

Evidence relevant to E. Forbes’s land-bridge theory.

Contributor:
Darwin Correspondence Project