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To A. S. Wilson   16 April 1881

Down

April 16. 1881

My dear Sir

I am much obliged for the extract from the Gardeners Chronicle. I think that you have done good service in explaining the Russian case, though no doubt it is hydra-headed and will again some day re-appear. It is a capital instance of one var. gradually beating out another.1 With respect to the so-called cotyledons of the Gramineæ, I did not know enough to form any independent judgment, so thought that I had better simply follow Sachs, though I did so with some misgiving.—2 I am sorry that I do not remember where I put Mr. Henslow’s note: I did not throw it away, but have no clue where to look for it.—3 I believe that Mr. Henslow is a very obliging man and would, I dare say, give you the desired information.

Pray believe me, my dear Sir | Yours very faithfully | Charles Darwin

Copy

1
See letter from A. S. Wilson, 14 April 1881 and n. 1. In A. S. Wilson 1881, Wilson had confirmed earlier results indicating that the two varieties of Russian wheat he had planted had different levels of productivity, leading to the more productive variety gradually replacing the less productive one.
2
See letter from A. S. Wilson, 14 April 1881 and n. 3. Wilson had disagreed with the then popular view that the sheath of the plumule was the cotyledon in grasses. This view had been expressed by Julius Sachs in Sachs 1875, pp. 541–3 (see Movement in plants, p. 63).
3
George Henslow had sent CD an abstract of the views of botanists on the nature of cotyledons in grasses (see Correspondence vol. 26, letter from George Henslow, [c. 20 February 1878]).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13121,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13121