Ɛpsilon

To W. T. Thiselton-Dyer   20 November 1879

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

Nov 20. 1879

My dear Dyer,

Can you tell me the name of the enclosed Epimedium, & I enclose an addressed post card to save you trouble. The long flower peduncles with yellow flowers come up separately from the leaves early in the spring out of doors.1

In the summer I asked for some Gossypium seeds, but you had none; if you have any now I should be grateful for a few; but only species producing large cotyledons, such as the Nankin cotton which I had formerly from Kew, would be of any use to me2  Thompson of Ipswich sent me G. herbaceum but these were of no use, and he has no other kind.3

My dear Dyer | Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

LS

1
The specimen was probably Epimedium pinnatum, a perennial with bright yellow flowers in the family Berberidaceae. In Movement in plants, p. 103, CD mentioned that the greatly elongated flower stems and petioles of the plant rose up independently of the leaves and broke through the ground in the shape of arches.
2
CD had requested Gossypium maritimum and G. brasiliense (both synonyms of G. barbadense, Creole cotton) in his letter to Thiselton-Dyer of 24 March 1879. CD’s notes on the sleep of cotyledons in ‘Nankin cotton’, dated June, July, and August 1879, are in DAR 209.14: 5 and 15. Nankin is an alternative spelling for Nankeen; Nankeen cotton is Gossypium nanking (a synonym of G. arboreum, tree cotton). See Movement in plants, pp. 22–3, 324.
3
CD’s notes on Gossypium herbaceum (Levant cotton) received from William Thompson are in DAR 209.5: 99–107; CD discussed the different behaviour of the cotyledons in Nankin cotton and G. herbaceum in Movement in plants, p. 303.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12330,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12330