Ɛpsilon

To Hermann Müller   18 July 1880

Down, Beckenham, Kent

July 18. 1880.

My dear Sir

… I likewise enjoyed your well-merited castigation of M. Bonnier.1 The book appeared to me a most unsatisfactory one; but I was interested by his evidence of at least the occasional reabsorption of nectar.—2 …

Yours very faithfully | Ch. Darwin

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1
In the July 1880 issue of Kosmos, Müller had written an essay review of Gaston Bonnier’s Les nectaires: étude critique, anatomique et physiologique (Nectaries: a critical anatomical and physiological study; Bonnier 1879a) titled ‘Gaston Bonniers angebliche Widerlegung der modernen Blumentheorie’ (Gaston Bonnier’s supposed refutation of modern floral theory; H. Müller 1880b). In the highly critical article, Müller dismissed Bonnier’s study as mere teleological speculation and a chain of logical errors.
2
Bonnier had observed that in Reseda odorata (mignonette), nectar produced on the underside of the disc, which was abundant when the flower opened, was reabsorbed after fertilisation (Bonnier 1879a, pp. 108–9).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12473,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12473