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To W. C. Williamson   21 September [1878]1

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

Sept. 21st

My dear Professor Williamson

The specimens arrived dried up & shrivelled, but I have put them to soak, & I daresay that I shall be able to see their structure tomorrow, sufficiently to gratify my idle curiosity, for I am at work on other subjects.2

Many thanks for your kind offer of the plants: if you have any few seeds left & could spare them, I shd. like to see how the embryo breaks through the ground. In this case please inform me how you sow them, as I have hitherto failed in raising seedling Droseras.3

Yours very faithfully | Ch. Darwin

If I do not hear I shall understand you have no seed.—

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from W. C. Williamson, 20 September 1878.
2
See letter from W. C. Williamson, 20 September 1878. Williamson had sent specimens of Drosera spatulata (spoon-leaved sundew). CD was continuing to experiment on movement in plants.
3
No reply to this letter has been found, but Williamson described how he sowed seed of Drosera capensis (Cape sundew) in his letter to CD of 13 January 1880 (Calendar no. 12423). See also Movement in plants, p. 414.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

2.1 the] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-11700,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-11700