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From George Payne   14 June 1881

Abinger Hall Grds | Dorking | Surrey.

14.6.81.

To C. Darwin Esqr

Sir,

I have taken the liberty to send a bit of Seed of Anemone pulsatilla, I was very much interested yesterday when I gathered it to find that it burys itself in the ground just in the same way as the Feather grass. (Stipa pinnata)1 I have no doubt you will find it barbed as the above— it readily grows from seed.

I remain Sir, | Yours respectfully | Geo Payne.

1
Anemone pulsatilla is pasque flower; the seeds carry a ‘tail’ formed by the persisting style, which is covered in hygroscopic hairs. Stipa pennata is feather grass; the seeds have a bristle-like extension from the lemma of the floret called an awn. Payne had sent seeds of the latter to Francis Darwin in 1878 (Correspondence vol. 26, letter from T. H. Farrer, 4 May 1878). Francis had written a paper on the mechanism by which awned seeds, like those of Stipa pennata, buried themselves in the ground (F. Darwin 1876).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13205,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13205