To G. H. Darwin   11 [July 1878]1

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

11th

My dear George

I cannot tell you how I rejoice that the Lagrange’s case does not seem very bad—2 I feel sure that two men working on something analogous is an advantage, as far more likely to attract the attention of astronomers.—

I am working hard at Thalia & enjoy dissecting & microscope & have recovered some handiness.3 I have managed by cutting away all petals & organs except the enfolding one to feel sure this is the retainer & I am almost certain it is a case of true sensitiveness like that of Dionæa.—4 The cavity is the true stigma, for I found many pollen-tubes there deeply inserted; whereas the pollen-grains in the receptacle on the white sticky mass had not once exserted a tube. This sticky matter is merely a means to retain the pollen in the receptacle, after it has been scooped out of the anther.—5

Hurrah for the sticky stigma & the sticky or viscous bowels of the earth—6

Yours | C. D.

1
The month and year are established by the reference to Thalia dealbata (see n. 3, below).
2
George had been worried that his work on astronomical movement might be pre-empted by Charles Henri Lagrange (see letter from G. H. Darwin, [before 11 July 1878]).
3
CD had asked George to make drawings of the pistils in specimens of Thalia dealbata (powdery alligator-flag) that he had sent him (see letter to G. H. Darwin, 10 [July 1878]). CD was interested in determining whether the pistil was itself irritable or whether its movement was purely mechanical (see letter to Francis Darwin, 7 [July 1878]).
4
Dionaea muscipula is the Venus fly trap. CD suspected that the pistil itself of Thalia dealbata was irritable.
5
CD had described the the pistil as ‘rectangularly bent’ with at its summit a white pollen-filled knob that he identified as a stigma, and with a second stigma in a cavity below the bend (see letter to G. H. Darwin, 10 [July 1878]).
6
George was probably working on his paper ‘On the precession of a viscous spheroid, and on the history of a remote earth’, received by the Royal Society of London on 22 July, in which he treated the earth as a viscous body subject to disturbances from both the moon and the sun; his calculations indicated that enormous periods of time would be required for the evolution of the planetary system (G. H. Darwin 1878d).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

2.2 men] interl
2.4 true] interl
2.6 the white] ‘the’ interl
2.7 the receptacle] ‘the’ over del illeg
2.7 after] added
3.1 or viscous] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11601,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11601