Ɛpsilon

To Henry Groves   27 March 1882

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

March 27th. 1882

Dear Sir

I am much obliged for your very kind offer.1 I am not well & have not strength to examine Utricularia, but think that I could try & look at the Nitella.2 If it wd not give you too much trouble, I shd. much like to have a living plant. Will you kindly tell me how I cd. keep it alive. into what kind of water— whether there ought to be soil at the bottom of the vessel & about light—

Excuse brevity— Dear Sir | Yours faithfully | Ch. Darwin

1
Groves’s letter has not been found, but, as Groves was a fellow of the Linnean Society, he may have attended the meeting of 16 March 1882, at which CD’s papers ‘Action of carbonate of ammonia on roots’ and ‘Action of carbonate of ammonia on chlorophyll’ were read.
2
CD mentioned being very unwell for several days in his letter to W. D. Crick, 10 March [1882]. Utricularia is the genus of bladderworts; CD had studied it when working on Insectivorous plants (see Correspondence vols. 22 and 23). Nitella is a genus of freshwater green algae in the family Characeae (stoneworts).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.1 (Railway . S.E.R.)] parentheses added

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-13745,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-13745