Ɛpsilon

To J. J. Weir   5 July 1875

Down, Beckenham, Kent [Abinger Hall, Surrey.]

July 5, 1875

My dear Sir

Please to look over the enclosed note and return it to me.1 I am very much interested in the subject, and should be glad to know whether you keep to the same judgment and whether you have made any further observations. Am I right in supposing that none of the flowers were of a hybrid or mingled nature like those of C. Adami? for this makes your case very peculiar? Your letter is dated 1870, and I should like to know whether the grafted C. purpureus produced a twig bearing yellow flowers during this or some previous year.2

I am especially desirous to learn how the tree has behaved since you wrote to me.

I am correcting a new edit. of my Var., and I feel sure that you will excuse my troubling you.3

Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin.

Copy

1
CD evidently enclosed the letter from J. J. Weir, 27 June 1870 (Correspondence vol. 18).
2
Weir had described specimens of the yellow-flowered Cytisus alpinus (now Laburnum alpinum, Scotch laburnum) that were grafted with C. purpureus (a synonym of Chamaecytisus purpureus, purple broom), resulting in branches with either yellow or purple flowers, but no intermediate forms (Correspondence vol. 18, letter from J. J. Weir, 27 June 1870). In Variation 1: 390 n. 94, CD had described a hybrid ‘C. alpino-laburnum’ with characteristics exactly intermediate between the parent forms. Cytisus adami is a graft hybrid of the common yellow laburnum, C. laburnum (now Laburnum anagyroides), and C. purpureus; C. adami is now known as +Laburnocytisus adamii (Bean 1970–88, 2: 510–11). CD discussed C. adami in Variation 1: 387–90, noting that some branches bore the dingy red flowers of the hybrid form, while others commonly reverted to the parent species, bearing either yellow or purple flowers, or flowers that were half yellow and half purple.
3
CD began work on Variation 2d ed. on 6 July 1875 (CD’s ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)). For the discussion of Cytisus adami, see Variation 2d ed. 1: 413–17.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10043,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10043