To Fritz Müller   10 September 1881

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | (Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.)

Sept. 10th 1881

My dear Sir

Your account of the Pandanus & of Oxalis sepium has interested me so much, that I could not resist sending your account to Nature.—1 You write English so well that your letter might have been printed verbatim; but 2 or 3 trifling alterations seemed to improve the English, without altering the sense.— Many thanks for the seeds, & about the leaves not being wetted when immersed.2 I have from your seeds one fine healthy young plant of Schizolobium, with its first true leaf beginning to expand, so that I shall be able to experimentise on the leaves myself.— I am sorry to say that the tuber of Heteranthera, though treated with the utmost care, showed no signs of life, & Hedychium never arrived.3 It is too much trouble, with too little chance of success, for you to think of sending me living plants.

I have begun crossing heterostyled plants, & selected Linum grandiflorum; but I believe all my labour will be thrown away as in our wretched climate the pods will I fear rot.4

When the winter comes I will put my notes together on the use of the waxy secretion, or bloom, on leaves, fruit &c, & on the movements of the leaves & see what I can make of the subject; but I am somewhat doubtful whether my results will be of much worth.5 Perhaps you may remember that I described in “Insectivorous plants” a really curious phenomenon which I called the aggregation of the protoplasm in the cells of the tentacles. None of the great German Botanists will admit that the moving masses are composed of protoplasm; though it is astonishing to me that anyone could watch the movements & doubt its nature. But these doubts have led me to observe analogous facts, & I hope to succeed in proving my case.6

I often feel rather ashamed of myself, for asking for so many things from you, & for taking up so much of your valuable time; but I can assure you that I feel grateful.

Believe me, my dear Sir, | Yours very sincerely Ch. Darwin

1
See letter from Fritz Müller, 9 August 1881 and n. 6; part of the letter was published in Nature, 15 September 1881, p. 459 (see letter to Nature, [before 15 September 1881]).
2
See letter from Fritz Müller, 9 August 1881 and n. 3. Müller had sent seeds of an unnamed species of Dalbergia and promised to send seeds of Coccocypselum.
3
See letter from Fritz Müller, 9 August 1881 and nn. 8 and 9. Müller had sent seeds of Schizolobium parahyba (Brazilian firetree); CD’s notes on movement in the leaflets, dated 12 and 13 September 1881, are in DAR 209.12: 174. CD had received seeds of Heteranthera reniformis (kidneyleaf mudplantain) from Müller in April 1881 (see letter to Fritz Müller, 12 April 1881).
4
The summer of 1881 was cold and wet, interfering with CD’s experiments; his notes on plants of Linum grandiflorum fertilised between 18 July and 1 August 1881, with additional notes made on 20 and 31 March 1882 for seeds germinated the following year, are in DAR 67: 88.
5
CD’s notes on bloom (the epicuticular waxy coating on leaves and other plant parts), dated from 1873 to 1881, are in DAR 66–8; notes made in 1881 are in DAR 67: 66–110. Most of CD’s experiments in 1881 focused on the protective function of bloom and leaf movement. CD never published on the subject, but Francis Darwin published a paper on bloom and the distribution of stomata or breathing pores on leaves (F. Darwin 1886).
6
See Insectivorous plants, pp. 38–65; CD observed the phenomenon in Drosera rotundifolia (common or round-leaved sundew). Ferdinand Julius Cohn, in an essay review of the book (Cohn 1876, pp. 454–5), was sceptical of the protoplasmic nature of the aggregated material, referring instead to the aggregation of particles in the red cell sap (see also Correspondence vol. 23, letter from F. J. Cohn, 28 August 1875). CD’s further experimental notes on aggregation, dated between August and December 1881, are in DAR 52: F13–98, and DAR 62: 3–108.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 (Railway … S.E.R.)] parentheses added
1.3 your letter] interl above del ‘it’
1.5 from … one] interl above del ‘a’
1.7 experimentise] after del ‘try’
3.2 & … leaves] interl
3.6 great] interl
4.2 for] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13326,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13326