Ɛpsilon

From J. B. Innes   20 October 1877

Milton Brodie | Forres—

20 Octr 1877—

Dear Darwin,

Thanks for your note about the Loch Carron tree.1 I sent a portion of it to the Journal of Horticulture and the Editor replies.

“The tree is the Sambucus racemosa, Red berried Elder, introduced by Gerarde in the year 1596. No genus has more superstitions connected with it than has the Sambucus.”2

If Stuart is still at Courthill next summer I shall examine the flowers: Could the wily old minister have got some seeds and stuck them in where he foretold (if he did) that the tree should grow?.3 I am glad to see your Coal and Clothing Club is doing well. Ffinden sent me a report of it.4

And I am glad to hear that Ffinden has an interval of pacific tempers.5 Some at least of Hoole’s family are I hear at Downe already. I think you will like them, the children are the dearest little bodies I know, and the parents very genial and pleasant—6

With our kindest regards | Faithfully yours | J Brodie Innes

2
See Journal of Horticulture, 18 October 1877, p. 307. The editors of the journal were George William Johnson and Robert Hogg. John Gerard is recorded in Hortus Kewensis as the first cultivator of the red-berried elder (Aiton 1810–13, 2: 171).
3
Dugald Stuart lived at Courthill House on the Lochcarron estate in Ross-shire, Scotland. Innes had stated in Journal of Horticulture (see n. 2, above), ‘that it was foretold by the last preacher in a kirk at Loch Carron, now ruined, that after his death an unknown tree should spring up where his pulpit was, and that when it reached above the wall there should be a European war.’
4
The Down Coal and Clothing Club was a local charity that supplied parishioners with cheap coal and clothes in exchange for regular savings; it had been set up by Innes, and CD served as treasurer from 1848 to 1869 (see Correspondence vol. 4, letter to John Innes, [8 May 1848] and n. 2). George Sketchley Ffinden was the vicar of Down; he ran the Coal and Clothing Club (J. R. Moore 1985, p. 470).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11194,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11194