Ɛpsilon

To J. V. Carus   26 March 1877

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

Mar 26. 1877

My dear Sir,

Many thanks for your never-failing kindness. I am always making mistakes. Perhaps I am deceiving myself, but I think I saw the word cleistogene used by some one else & that made me forget the true term. I found out my error some time ago, for I am now writing on cleistogamic flowers.1

These flowers form the subject of a chapter in a small book which I shall send to the printers in about a months time, & which relates chiefly to heterostyled plants. When this book is published I shall have worked up all my old materials on plants, & as far as I can see you will have a long or final rest from the labour of translation.2

Accept my cordial thanks for your kind expressions towards me, & believe me, | Yours very sincerely | Charles Darwin

P.S. | Give my very kind remembrances to Dr Dohrn; I am very glad to hear that you so much enjoy yr work there3

LS

2
CD reworked material from ‘Dimorphic condition in Primula’, ‘Two forms in species of Linum’, ‘Three forms of Lythrum salicaria’, ‘Illegitimate offspring of dimorphic and trimorphic plants’, and ‘Specific difference in Primula’ for Forms of flowers, which was published on 9 July 1877 (Freeman 1977). Carus translated Forms of flowers into German (Carus trans. 1877e).
3
See letter from J. V. Carus,  22 March 1877 and n. 3. Carus spent three months working at Anton Dohrn’s Zoological Station in Naples from February 1877; see letter from J. V. Carus, 20 January 1877.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-10914,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-10914