From Charles Cardale Babington   22 November 1856

St John’s College | Cambridge

22 Nov. 1856

Dear Darwin

I do not now remember to have ever gathered the Subularia otherwise than totally submersed.1 Koch (Syn. Fl. Germ.) describes the flowers as they appear when open above the water & so I think that we may fairly believe that it does flower above the water—at least sometimes.2 On thinking again, I strongly suspect that I have seen it out of water at the edges of Welsh lakes when they had run low. I cannot be quite sure either that I have or have not seen the aerial flowers.

I have not been able to find any anonymous book upon Pigeons in the University Library.3 The word is in the Catalogue and refers to a class that has been “broken up many years since” and no trace of the book is to be found. The officials think, after consulting all the probable records in their possession that the book is not now in the library. The Catalogue does not describe the book.

Yours truly | Charles C. Babington—

I have very seldom seen Limosella growing, but believe that it is an aerial flowerer.

1
Subularia aquatica (awlwort), a hermaphroditic water-plant, was thought to flower under water with the corolla closed, which would make crossing with another individual impossible. CD, who was at this time writing his chapter on the crossing of animals and plants (Natural selection, pp. 35–91), doubted that such ‘eternal and absolute’ hermaphrodites existed and was investigating all instances of alleged cases that he could find.
2
Koch 1843–4. The work is cited in Natural selection, p. 63, and in a note CD further commented: ‘I am indebted for this reference to Mr Babington & to Mr H. C. Watson’. See also letter from H. C. Watson, 26 November 1856, and letter to J. D. Hooker, [early December 1856].
3
CD had probably asked Babington to look for [J. Moore] 1765 in the Cambridge University Library.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-1996,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-1996