Ɛpsilon

To W. T. Thiselton-Dyer   17 January 1877

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

Jan 17. 1877

Dear Dyer,

Your praise of my book has pleased me much, though I fear it is too strong.1 George Henslow has criticised my figures in the Gardener’s Chronicle, on no sufficient grounds as it appears to me.2

I am particularly obliged for your notes.3 My object in the introduction was merely as a sort of bond for my miscellaneous chapters, and I feared that I might have fallen into the grossest errors & omissions. Thanks about Mussænda; I found a note with this name on it among my papers & couldn’t remember the least what it meant.4

Do any of your friends care for what I suppose are Oceanic algæ, sent to me together with the enclosed printed scrap from Queensland.5 If of no use throw them in the fire, I thus cleverly relieve myself of all responsibility.

With many thanks, yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

LS

1
The letter from W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, [before 17 January 1877], is incomplete and the section where Thiselton-Dyer praised Cross and self fertilisation has not been found.
2
The first part of Henslow’s review of Cross and self fertilisation (Henslow 1877, p. 42) had appeared in Gardeners’ Chronicle, 13 January 1877; two further parts appeared in issues of 3 and 17 February 1877. Henslow had criticised CD for not including figures in some cases for the relative sizes of cross- and self-fertilised plants beyond the third generation; he suggested that these figures were less favourable to CD’s argument about the vigour of crossed plants.
3
Thiselton-Dyer had sent CD suggestions for the introduction to Forms of flowers in his letter of [before 17 January 1877].
4
See letter from W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, [before 17 January 1877] and n. 8. There is a note on Mussaenda frondosa (dhobi tree), dated ‘May/62/’ referring to ‘2 involucres to each group of flowers large & snow white— ’ in DAR 49: 73. CD later added, in red pencil, the word ‘Dichogamy’.
5
No letter from Queensland, Australia, with an enclosure of algae has been identified. The specimens sent to Thiselton-Dyer have not been found.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10798,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10798