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From Thomas Meehan   28 April 1880

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania | Board of Agriculture | Harrisburg | Germantown

April 28th. 1880

Botanical Department. | Thos. Meehan, Botanist.

Dear Mr. Darwin,

There has been much talk in our papers lately about Mr. Darwin owning himself wrong about sterility in hybrids,—and I have taken occasion to set your position right, as I understand your position to be, in my department of the New York Independent.1

You may also be interested in the succeeding item on hybrids in Nature. My friend Isaac C. Martindale has gone closely over the Bartram oak question—long supposed to be a hybrid—and I have asked him to send you a copy.2

I think in some cases hybrids may be more fertile than their parents. We get here considerable seed (and raise seedlings) from Magnolia Soulangeana, while I cannot remember ever to have seen any seed on M. conspicua, which I suppose to be one of its parents.3

I hope time is behaving leniently with you. It seems I have occasionally to “propose an amendment” to some proposition of yours,—but I think there is no one here who more thouroughly appreciates the great value of your labors, or who more sincerely prays that you may live long to continue your good work.4

Very Sincerely yours | Thomas Meehan

1
Meehan wrote the ‘Science’ column in the weekly New York newspaper; his item on CD’s position on the fertility of hybrids appeared in the Independent, 29 April 1880, p. 7. No copy of the column has been found in the Darwin Archive–CUL.
2
The next item in the same column discussed differing opinions on the occurrence and fertility of natural hybrids. George Clinton Swallow was cited as having stated that the Bartram oak (Quercus × heterophylla, Bartram’s oak or oddleaf oak) reverted to its parent species (Q. rubra, red oak, and Q. phellos, willow oak), while George Engelmann argued that many oaks hybridised naturally and produced fertile offspring. Martindale’s pamphlet Notes on the Bartram oak (Martindale 1880) has not been found in the Darwin Archive–CUL.
3
Magnolia × soulangeana (saucer magnolia) is a hybrid of M. conspicua (a synonym of M. denudata, lily tree or Yulan magnolia) and M. liliiflora (purple or Mulan magnolia).
4
Meehan probably alludes to his belief that insects played a limited role in plant fertilisation and that self-fertilised plants were as vigorous as and more productive than those dependent on insect aid (see, for example, Correspondence vol. 25, letter from Thomas Meehan, 1 July 1877).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-12594,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-12594