To A. G. More   7 July [1861]1

2. Hesketh Crescent | Torquay

July 7th

My dear Sir

I have been looking over my notes on E. palustris & shd. much like to see a few more flowers just on point of opening.2 Should you think me very unreasonable if I were to ask you to send me a few: I have enquired and am told it does not grow here.—

I have never heard whether it grows near you: if it does & you could visit the spot twice, I would ask you to try a little experiment, viz to cut off the terminal & movable division of the Labellum in 6 or 8 flowers which had not quite opened & which therefore could not have been visited by insects; & mark these flowers with little bits of thread & then see if these set pods as well as the other flowers.— But this little experiment would be useless if this is a species which does not freely in ordinary cases set pods.— I would not on any account have you take much trouble to try this; but if I had the opportunity I shd. try it for bare chance: of its showing that this terminal portion of Labellum was of use, as I suspect, in guiding and aiding some unknown insect in its proper function of fertilising the flowers.—3

My dear Sir | Yours sincerely | Charles Darwin

1
This letter was first published in Correspondence vol. 9, transcribed from a copy on which the year is recorded (DAR 146: 397).
2
Epipactis palustris is described in Orchids, pp. 95–102. More is thanked for having ‘repeatedly’ sent CD ‘fresh specimens of this beautiful Orchid’ (ibid., p. 95 n.).
3
More was able to comply with CD’s request. For the results of this experiment, see the letter to A. G. More, 19 July [1861] and n. 6.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

2.00 mark] above del ‘mark’
2.00 this is] ‘is’ interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3203,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3203