Ɛpsilon

To F. J. Cohn   31 March [1876]

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

March 31

My dear Sir

It is a great pleasure to me to receive a letter from you whom I have so long honoured.1 I am much obliged for Dr Fraustadt’s paper on Dionæa and I beg you to thank him for it. As I read German very slowly I will wait until I receive the plates which you kindly say that you will send me.2 I am glad that the structure of all insectivorous plants will now be thoroughly investigated.3 Perhaps Dr Fraustadt may like to hear that a paper by Mr Bennett has appeared in the Monthly Microscopical Journal Jan 1. 1876 on certain absorptive glands which he describes as embedded in the tissues of Drosera and Pinguicula.4

Should you ever make any further observations on what I have called the process of aggregation in Drosera &c, I hope that you will be so kind as to send me your paper, as I should very much wish to know what you decide5 | With much respect | my dear Sir | Yours very faithfully | Charles Darwin

LS

2
CD’s annotated copy of Alexander Fraustadt’s inaugural dissertation on Dionaea muscipula (the Venus fly trap; Fraustadt 1876) contains the plates, which must have been sent separately by Cohn.
3
In his letter of 28 March 1876, Cohn said that he and Fraustadt were collecting materials to compare the morphological and anatomical structure of Dionaea with other plants in the family Droseraceae.
4
Alfred William Bennett’s paper was ‘The absorptive glands of carnivorous plants’ (Bennett 1875).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10436,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10436