Ɛpsilon

To Édouard Heckel   1 January 1878

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

Jan. 1st/78

Dear Sir

I thank you sincerely for your very kind note & good wishes. I am much pleased to hear that you are translating my last book.— I fully agree that you had better always use the scientific terms for what we call the Primrose & Cowslip.— With respect to the Oxlip, I shd. think it would be best to refer to it as the hybrid P. veris-vulgar   The so-called Bardfield Oxlip, which is rare in England, must of course be called P. elatior Jacq.1

I wish you well through your labours & with congratulations on the new year, remain, with much respect. | Yours very faithfully | Ch. Darwin

Two bad errata

p. 162 9 lines from top for “mid-length stamens”, read “shortest”

p. 205 5 lines from bottom for “own-form shortest stamens” read “own-form mid-length stamens”.2

1
Heckel’s letter has not been found. He was translating Forms of flowers into French (Heckel trans. 1878). Heckel tended to use the Linnean binomials for Primula species, but he also translated cowslip (Primula veris) as coucou or pain de coucou, primroses and cowslips as primevère (French does not distinguish them under this term), and primroses (P. vulgaris) as primevère commun. He translated oxlip as primevère des jardins and Bardfield oxlip as primevère de Bardfield and primevère élevée. (See Heckel trans. 1878, chapters 1 and 2.)
2
The corrections were made in Heckel trans. 1878, pp. 167 and 211.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

stamens] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11306,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11306