To J. S. Henslow   14 July [1855]

Down Farnborough Kent

July 14th

My dear Henslow.

With mistakes & alterations, the Hitcham list1 is so blotched, that I have copied out the 22 plants, which grow at Hitcham & are found at Azores; & are, according to a list of 77 received yesterday, from Mr H. C. Watson, the least likely to have been imported with agricultural seeds.—2 If you will employ your little girls to collect these, I shd. be greatly obliged, & pay them liberally for me. I shd. require, when such could be procured, a packet with 100 or 200 seeds of each kind, or even rather more of the easily procured kinds; of course less would do. But I have to try them without salting, & at successive periods after immersion.—

I think I shd prefer waiting till you have a good many of the 22 kinds together.

I hope that you think the experiment sufficiently curious to repay you in some slight degree for part of trouble you have so kindly taken. I hope that the little girls, with payment in view, will enjoy the job.—

Most truly yours | C. Darwin diag Water-cress— Nasturtium officinale

Milkwort

Strawberry Fragaria vesca

Cinque-foil, creeping Potentilla reptans

Cinquefoil strawberry-leaved P. tormentilla

Willow-herb—small-flowered. Epilob. parviflorum

Water-star-wort Callitriche

Ivy Hedera helix

Marsh-wort procumbent. Helosciadium nodiflorum

Bedstraw, white water Galium palustre

Centaury common Erythræa centauria

Hooded-Bindweed, great. Convolvulus sepium

Primrose Primula veris

Figwort water Scrophularia aquatica

Speedwell thyme-leaved. Veronica serpyllifolia

—— water —— anagallis

—— common —— officinalis

Thrincia hairy — Thrincia hirta

Spurge-laurel, common Daphne laureola

Club Rush, lake Scirpus lacustris

Carex— any 2 species.3

——

22 kinds

——ramme

1
Henslow 1855a, sent to CD by Henslow (see letter to J. S. Henslow, 27 June [1855]).
3
CD refers to the following plants: Polygala vulgaris (common milkwort); Fragaria vesca (European strawberry); Potentilla reptans (creeping cinquefoil); P. tormentilla (a synonym of P. erecta, erect cinquefoil); Epilobium parviflorum (small-flowered willowherb); Callitriche stagnalis (common water-starwort); Hedera helix (English ivy); Helosciadium nodiflorum (fool’s watercress); Galium palustre (common marsh bedstraw); Erythraea centaurium (a synonym of Centaurium erythraea, European centaury); Convolvulus sepium (a synonym of Calystegia sepium subsp. sepium, hedge bindweed); Primula veris (common cowslip); Scrophularia aquatica (a synonym of S. oblongifolia, green figwort); Veronica serpyllifolia (thymeleaf speedwell); V. anagallis (a synonym of V. anagallis-aquatica, water speedwell); V. officinalis (heath speedwell); Thrincia hirta (a synonym of Leontodon crispus subsp. crispus, hairy hawkbit); Daphne laureola (spurge-laurel); Scirpus lacustris (a synonym of Schoenoplectus lacustris, common club-rush). Carex is the genus of sedges.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.2 out the] ‘the’ over ‘2’
1.3 list of 77] above del ‘note’
2.1 of the 22] interl
5.4 Cinque-foil, creeping] above del ‘Silver weed’
5.6 flowered] above del ‘leaved’
5.9 procumbent] interl
5.12 Bindweed] ‘weed’ over illeg
5.14 Figwort] above del ‘Scrop Speedwell’
5.21 species] after del ‘or’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1718,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1718