To Lawson Tait   [after 17 June 1875]1

Abinger Hall | Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.

My dear Sir

Aldrovanda is rootless & floats freely & catches abundant prey in various parts of world.—2 If you will wait till my book appears, I think you will find abundant evidence of absorption.—3 Your separation of the ferments, seems a capital discovery.—4 I have not strength to give evidence of absorption.

yours sincerely | Ch Darwin

1
The date is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from Lawson Tait, 17 June [1875].
2
Tait expressed an interest in Aldrovanda (the waterwheel plant) in his letter of 17 June [1875].
3
Insectivorous plants was published on 2 July 1875 (see CD’s ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)); the section on Aldrovanda is on pp. 321–31. CD concluded that its glands secreted true digestive fluid and absorbed the digested matter.
4
In his first letter of 12 June [1875], Tait had informed CD that he had isolated a pepsin-like substance from the glands of Drosera dichotoma (a synonym of D. binata, the forked-leaf sundew).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10019,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10019