From Daniel Oliver   23 April 1862

Kew.

Wednesday | 23. Apr. 1862

Dear Sir

Here are the flowers of Oxalis as requested. I do not perceive anything distinctly dimorphic.—1

My examining of the plant had reference chiefly to the aestival small flowers: they are very remarkable.— I altered a little the “definition” of the two groups of dimorphism in the paper which you so kindly looked over (& tho’t worth printing!).—2 Making one group with the Dimorphism manifest in, primarily, a separation more or less of the sexual organs, accompanied or not by alteration in the outer whorls.— (Thus including all wholly or partially diclinous plants,—Catasetum, Primula, &c) & the other group marked primarily by alteration primarily in envelopes of the flower without separation of the sexes.

Of course this is only the morphologl. definition

After discussing their function &c. we may class them in corresponding group by other characters.

Very sincerely yours | Danl. Oliver

See letter to Daniel Oliver, 20 [April 1862] and n. 2. There are observational notes relating to these specimens, dated 24 April 1862, in DAR 109 (ser. 2): 5. CD subsequently concluded that Oxalis acetosella was not dimorphic (see Forms of flowers, pp. 181–3).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3515,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3515