Ɛpsilon

From Francis Darwin to ?   23 August 1878

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

Aug 23. 78

Dear Sir,

My father begs me to express his thanks to you for your letter containing the curious case of inheritance.1 He regrets that being engaged in other directions the fact cannot be made use of by him. As you are no doubt aware, some similar cases are recorded in Animals & Plants 2nd Edit II p 319.2

My father can form no opinion as to the nature of the bough of the laburnum. If however the flowers were purple & not yellow, it is probable that your tree is Cytisus Adami & the variation is a case of reversion   You will find this case described Animals & Plants 2nd edit I p 4133

Yours faithfully | Francis Darwin

1
The letter has not been found; the correspondent has not been identified.
2
In Variation 2d ed. 2: 319ff., CD had discussed cases in which inherited baldness was associated with an inherited deficiency in teeth, as well as other cases of correlated variation.
3
Cytisus adami (a synonym of +Laburnocytisus adamii) was a graft hybrid of the common yellow laburnum, C. laburnum (a synonym of Laburnum anagyroides), and C. purpureus (a synonym of Chamaecytisus purpureus, purple broom; Bean 1970–88, 2: 510–11). Cytisus adami was noted for its red, sterile flowers, but frequently some branches would revert to either parent form, bearing yellow or purple flowers. For CD’s discussion of the case, see Variation 2d ed. 1: 413–17.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11672,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11672