To Daniel Oliver   8 October [1861]1

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

Oct 8th

My dear Sir

I am perfectly ashamed to trouble Hooker again.— Would you have kindness to look at well-opened flower of Stanhopea saccata & see whether any nectar is in hollowed out base or cup of Labellum; or in other species of Stanhopea, if they have hollowed out base or cup to Labellum.—

I have particular reason to enquire; but I daresay the plant will have none, though it ought to have some.—2 But Nature, as Agassiz says, does not lie,3 & therefore it must have nectar,—else a theory of mine is wrong which is clearly impossible!—

In Haste | Ever yours | C. Darwin

2
The idea that Stanhopea flowers ‘ought’ to have nectar in the base of the labellum is explained in Orchids, pp. 282–3: ‘As in Epipactis the cup at the base of the labellum serves as a nectar-receptacle, I expected to find that the analogous cup in Stanhopea, Acropera, &c., would serve for the same purpose; but I never could find a drop of nectar in it.’
3
CD was fond of quoting this aphorism attributed to Louis Agassiz. See, for example, Correspondence vol. 6, letter to Asa Gray, 1 January [1857].

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.2 well-opened flower of] interl
1.2 nectar is] ‘is’ interl
1.3 or cup] interl
1.4 base] after del ‘ba’
1.4 cup] above del ‘cup’
2.3 a theory] ‘a’ above del ‘my’
2.3 of mine] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3279,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3279