To W. T. Thiselton-Dyer   30 September 1875

Down | Beckenham

Sep 30. 75

My dear Dyer

I am very much obliged to you for writing to me about what you call trivial matters. I take in the Gard: Chronicle at present, but by an odd chance last number has failed.1 I have sent for it as I should be very sorry to miss seeing the account to which you refer, though Gärtner has described seminal hybrids in which the characters became dis-sociated with advancing age.2

I have put the curious seeds of the Geum on damp sand but I doubt much whether they will bury themselves. I am particularly obliged about the Schrankia wh is quite new to me, and if ever I go on with the subject I may perhaps be able to borrow the plant from Kew3

With many thanks | Yrs very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

LS

1
In his letter of 28 September 1875, Thiselton-Dyer had given a reference to an article on hybrid aroids in Gardeners’ Chronicle, 25 September 1875, pp. 398–9.
2
See Variation 2d ed. 1: 424–5. CD cited Karl Friedrich von Gärtner’s Versuche und Beobachtungen über die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich (Experiments and observations on the production of hybrids in the plant kingdom; Gärtner 1849, pp. 549–50) on the subject of hybrids from seed that showed characteristics of one parent (rather than mixed characteristics) after a time.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10177,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10177