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To A. S. Wilson   13 February 1880

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Feb: 13. 1880

My dear Sir

It was very kind of you to send me the two numbers of the Gard. Chron. with your two articles, which I have read with much interest. You have quite convinced me, whatever Mr. Asher may say to the contrary.1 I want to ask you a question on the bare chance of your being able to answer it; but if you cannot please do not take the trouble to write. The lateral branches of the silver fir often grow out into knobs through the action of a fungus Æcidium; and from these knobs shoots grow vertically instead of horizontally like all the other twigs on the same branch.2 Now the roots of Cruciferæ3 and probably other plants are said to become knobbed through the action of a fungus; now do these knobs give rise to rootlets and if so do they grow in a new or abnormal direction?

Believe me, my dear Sir | Yours sincerely | Charles Darwin

Copy

1
Wilson’s letter and the copies of Gardener’ Chronicle have not been found. Wilson sent the issues for 24 January and 7 February 1880, containing his two-part article, ‘Kubanka and Saxonka wheat’ (Wilson 1880); Wilson had published an earlier article with his preliminary findings on the wheat varieties (Wilson 1879). Georg Michael Asher had arranged for samples of the wheat to be sent from Russia in 1878 (see Correspondence vol. 26, letter from G. M. Asher, 14 February 1878). Asher had disputed Wilson’s view that the apparent transformation of Kubanka into Saxonka was merely an artefact of the greater productivity of the latter variety (Wilson 1879, p. 654, and Wilson 1880, p. 173; see letter from A. S. Wilson, 5 January 1880).
2
In his letter of [after 2 June 1879] (Correspondence vol. 27), Francis Darwin had provided CD with information on the abnormal shoots of Abies pectinata (a synonym of A. alba, silver fir), caused by Aecidium elatinum (a synonym of Melampsorella caryophyllacearum, fir broom rust).
3
Cruciferae is a synonym of Brassicaceae, the mustard and cabbage family.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12478,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12478