Ɛpsilon

From Francis Darwin   [after 8 October 1876]1

Pantlludw, | Machynlleth.

Dearest Father

Many thanks for the papers & your letter;2 I can work quite well all morning at the teasel work.3 I have been also reading & abstracting all the part in Sachs Physiologie Vég: about transpiration & circulation of water with a view to trying a machine for measuring root-absorbtion, devised by us & this gives me a good lot of thought4  I shall have a good bit more teasel microscoping to do when I get back. I see in Nature that in the Italian Journal of Bot a Dr Gibelli has described the leaves of Empetrum nigrum as making cavities like sarracenia & suggests they are insectivorous. Do you know Empetrum? (if that is the name, I am quoting without Nature)5 I ought to look at its glands as it may be teasel-plant

Mrs Ruck was very pleased at your kind way of sending yr love to her.6 Give my best love to dearest mother | Goodbye dear Father, I am very glad you like Wms house7 | Yr affec son | Frank Darwin

I shall be glad of Orchis proofs8

1
The date is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter to Francis Darwin, 8 October [1876].
2
CD had recommended two articles in the latest issue of Popular Science Review (see letter to Francis Darwin, 8 October [1876] and nn. 1 and 3).
3
Francis was experimenting with the common or fuller’s teasel (Dipsacus sylvestris, a synonym of D. fullonum; see letter from Francis Darwin, [1 June 1876] and n. 2).
4
Absorption, circulation, and transpiration of water are discussed in chapters 6 and 7 of Julius Sachs’s Physiologie végétale (Sachs 1868, a translation of Handbuch der Experimental-Physiologie der Pflanzen (Sachs 1865)).
5
The notice of an article by Giuseppe Gibelli comparing the leaves of Empetrum nigrum (the crowberry) to insect-catching pitchers of Nepenthes and Sarracenia appeared in Nature, 5 October 1876, p. 518. The original article was published in Nuovo Giornale Botanico Italiano (Gibelli 1876). CD had communicated ‘On the leaf-arrangement of the crowberry (Empetrum nigrum)’ by Hubert Airy (Airy 1876) to the Royal Society of London (see letter from Hubert Airy, 2 May 1876).
6
CD had referred to Mary Anne Ruck as Francis’s ‘dear second mother’ (letter to Francis Darwin, 8 October [1876]).
7
CD stayed at William Erasmus Darwin’s house in Southampton from 7 to 20 October (CD’s ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)).
8
Proof-sheets of Orchids 2d ed. were expected soon (see letter to Francis Darwin, 8 October [1876] and n. 5).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10635F,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10635F