Ɛpsilon

From J. D. Hooker   7 October 1879

Royal Gardens Kew

Oct 7/79

Dear Darwin

Please get me good specimens of enclosed from Miss Wedgwood Garden1   I want to draw it, & also roots (if perennial:)

In haste | Yrs | J D Hooker

Saracenia & Darlingtonia do not care for “light & sweetness” hitherto2

1
Emma Darwin’s sister, Elizabeth Wedgwood, lived in Down. The enclosure has not been found.
2
Sarracenia (trumpet pitcher-plants) and Darlingtonia californica (the California pitcher-plant; Darlingtonia is a monospecific genus) are insectivorous plants. Hooker had evidently found that they were not heliotropic (see letter from J. D. Hooker, 2 October 1879 and n. 4). ‘Light & sweetness’: an ironic reference to the idiom ‘sweetness and light’, popularised by Matthew Arnold’s Culture and anarchy (Arnold 1869).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12251,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12251