To T. H. Farrer   7 May [1878]1

Basset, Southampton

May 7th

My dear Farrer

We are staying here till Monday, so that the Ledum (a plant which I never before saw) arrived quite dried up; but by soaking it, I saw the astonishing number of captured flies.— The case ought to be investigated & if I could find time (which alas prevents many things being done) I would do so.— Could Mr Payne raise me a plant in a pot?2 By the way I know nothing about Stipa, & hope a plant has not reached Down during our absence.3

Double flowers are perplexing things, but a theory which I give in my Var: under Dom: seems to explain most cases,—bearing in mind what slight changes of conditions induce sterility.4

At present I care for nothing in this wide world except the biology of seedling plants,—the infamous threatening of war being of course a trifle compared with my beloved seedlings.5

How charming Abinger must have been looking.—6

Yours ever very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

Mr Torbitt wrote to me a little time ago that he had determined to raise 15,000, instead of 5,000 seedling Potatoes.7

With respect to crossed Primroses, I have known wild hybrid oxlips, crossed naturally by primrose, & the grandchildren were primroses borne on a very short common peduncle.—8

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from T. H. Farrer, 4 May 1878.
2
The Darwins visited William Erasmus and Sara Darwin in Southampton from 27 April to 13 May 1878 (CD’s ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)). Farrer had sent CD a specimen of Ledum sp. (see letter from T. H. Farrer, 4 May 1878 and n. 1). George Payne was Farrer’s gardener.
3
Farrer had instructed Payne to send a plant of an unnamed species of Stipa for Francis Darwin (see letter from T. H. Farrer, 4 May 1878 and n. 5).
4
CD discussed the cause of doubleness in flowers in Variation 2: 167, concluding that long-continued cultivation in rich soil seemed to be the ‘commonest exciting cause’.
5
CD had been working on movement in cotyledons (seed-leaves) of plants, later published in Movement in plants. Following the decisive Russian victory in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–8 and the signing of the Treaty of San Stefano, other European states were alarmed by the increase of Russian influence in the region. Britain had threatened to go to war, but a crisis was averted by the convening of the Congress of Berlin in mid-May 1878 (Mackenzie 1993, pp. 240–2). See also letter to R. A. T. Gascoyne-Cecil, [18 May 1878].
6
Abinger Hall, Abinger, Surrey, was Farrer’s home. CD had last stayed there in 1875 (Correspondence vol. 23).
8
See letter from T. H. Farrer, 4 May 1878 and n. 2. The peduncle or flower-stalk of Primula vulgaris is typically fairly long with a single flower-head.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.1 Bassett, Southampton] above del ‘Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.’
1.1 (a … saw) 1.2] interl
2.3 induce] ‘e’ over ‘es’
7.1 wild] added

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11495,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11495