Ɛpsilon

To Hermann Müller   20 September 1878

Down, Beckenham, Kent

Sept. 20. 1878

My dear Sir

— — — — — I am working away on some points in vegetable physiology; but though they interest me and my son, yet they have none of the fascination which the fertilisation of flowers possesses.1 Nothing in my life has ever interested me more than the fertilisation of such plants as Primula and Lythrum, or again Anacamptis or Listera.2

With the most sincere respect | Yours very faithfully | Charles Darwin

Copy incomplete3

1
CD and Francis Darwin were making observations on movement in plants and bloom (CD’s ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)).
2
CD’s earlier work on the fertilisation of plants had been collected and updated in Forms of flowers, published in 1877; see also Cross and self fertilisation, a second edition of which appeared in 1878, and Orchids, a second edition of which appeared in 1877. Listera and Anacamptis are genera of orchids.
3
Dashes before the first sentence in the copy of the letter suggest that text has been omitted; for an indication of the missing content, see the letter from Hermann Müller, 25 September 1878. The original letter has not been found. This extract was published in ML 2: 419.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11698,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11698