Showing 61–80 of 506 items
Forwards letter from Asa Gray.
Bentham is very agitated by Origin. CD over-emphasises natural selection. His theory accounts for too much and would be improved by unburdening it of natural selection.
CD’s observations on curved styles read well. JDH seeks morphological rationale of curvature in the position of nectaries.
He has avoided lecturing to Royal Family’s children at Buckingham Palace.
Glad to hear good news of Etty [Henrietta Darwin].
CD’s observations on Scaevola are capital. The indusium collects the pollen and is the homologue of the pollen-collecting hairs of Campanula. A boat-shaped organ forms a second indusium, the inside base of which forms the stigmatic surface. The latter later protrudes as horns, forming the stigma.
Describes W. H. Harvey’s scientific career and thinks his letter interesting. Agrees with Harvey that the primary agency of natural selection is as great a mystery as ever. [Response to 2823.]
JDH reports on the debate on the Origin at Oxford [BAAS] meeting.
Encourages CD’s work in vegetable physiology.
Ascending the Lebanon JDH noted limits of plant distribution as CD requested: lower limits of a genus sharper than upper. Sharpness of boundaries related to a plant’s moisture requirement.
Impressed by "sporadic" distribution at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris.
JDH’s page-by-page criticisms on Origin, first edition, as requested by CD for preparation of the third edition.
CD’s article worth publishing in Gardeners’ Chronicle. JDH interprets CD’s observation in terms of selection. Has observed similar phenomenon in Cruciferae, where it can be taxonomically important.
List of Australian plants that have become naturalised in the Nilgiris [India] and are turning out the native trees.
Sends plant specimens. William Borrer will be glad to send seeds.
Asks CD whether he hears from Asa Gray. JDH’s opinion of the crisis [Trent case, Nov 1861] and the American Civil War.
Julius von Haast alludes to glacial drift in Middle Island of New Zealand.
Backwardness of JDH’s son, Willy.
Encloses a reference from Daniel Oliver which may be useful.
Glad CD has given up on Acropera ovules.
Doubts phanerogams less different in extreme forms [than Crustacea].
No systematic parallelism between plants and animals.
Offers list of Arctic plants with their colours. Asks CD whether it is useful to add colour to [descriptions of] plants.
Will send an Arethusa; offers other specimens.
Dimorphism.
Falconer contradicts Sumatra and Ceylon elephant story.
Lyell as rabid as ever about America.
JDH castigates the Americans after the Trent affair. The value of an aristocracy. How will CD answer Asa Gray’s letter?
His "remarkable plant" [Welwitschia mirabilis] exhibited at Linnean Society.
Genera plantarum is in press.
Sends C. W. Crocker’s address.
Doubts CWC can help with Mormodes.
Will see CD at Lubbock’s.
Sends dried specimens of Melastomataceae.
Box of Melastomataceae has arrived.
Talked with [Duke of] Argyll about Origin. He is between stools: Owen and Lyell.
Pleased at CD’s opinion of his Arctic plants paper. CD has caught great blunder.
Lack of Arctic–Asiatic species in mountains of tropical Asia does not trouble him. Species seem to indicate some "current of migration" from Europe and W. Asia southeastward to Ceylon – an awful staggerer to bridge migrations.
Had it not been for CD, JDH would never have written such papers as his one on Arctic flora. The "evulgation" of CD’s views is the purest pleasure he derives from them.
He too is staggered that Greenland ought to have been depopulated during the glacial period. Absence of Caltha is fatal to its re-population by chance migration.
JDH has probably influenced Bates by pointing out applicability of CD’s views to his cases.
Is greatly puzzled by difference in effect of external conditions on individual animals and plants. Cannot conceive that climate could affect even such a single character as a hooked seed.
Does not think Huxley is right about "saltus".
Lighthearted thoughts on "the development of an Aristocracy" after a visit to Walcot Hall, Shropshire.
On CD’s point about the effect of changed conditions on the reproductive organs, JDH does not see why this is not "itself a variation, not necessarily induced by domestication, but accompanying some variety artificially selected".
