To Alexander Goodman More   18 May [1862]1

Down Bromley Kent [Leith Hill Place]

May 18th

My dear Sir

If you shd. have leisure & your health shd. be good, & if again you shd. feel any little interest on subject, perhaps you would try the experiment on Ep. palustris. Flowers shd. be chosen in middle of spike, & marked by a thread; & when the capsules are nearly ripe, each shd. be separately folded up in paper; & another capsule from an unmutilated flower close by from same spikes shd. be gathered & folded up in paper. as standard of comparison.— I would then endeavour to estimate whether there was any difference in fertility in the flowers possessed of the distal portion of the labellum, & those deprived of it.— I shd. much like to see this point ascertained;2 but of course you must not think of troubling yourself unless you shd. feel some little curiosity on the subject.

Many thanks for your note.—3

Pray do not think of acknowledging this | My dear Sir | Yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin

Of course the distal portion of labellum would have to be removed from flowers not fully expanded.—

1
This letter was first published in Correspondence vol. 9, transcribed from a copy on which the year is recorded (DAR 146: 404).
2
More lived on the Isle of Wight where Epipactis palustris, the marsh epipactis, was common. CD and More tried this experiment (designed to ascertain the importance of the structure of the labellum) the previous summer, but, as CD reported in Orchids, p. 101 n., the attempt was made too late in the season and the seed capsules More did manage to send shed most of their seed before reaching Down House. See Correspondence vol. 9, letters to A. G. More, 4 June [1861], 7 July [1861], and 19 July [1861]. See also letter from C. W. Crocker, 13 March 1862 and n. 2.
3
The letter from More has not been found; he may have written to thank CD for his presentation copy of Orchids (see Correspondence vol. 10, Appendix IV).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.00 the capsules] ‘the’ interl
1.00 capsules are] ‘are’ added
1.00 as … comparison.] interl
1.00 possessed of] ‘of’ above del illeg
1.00 deprived] above del ‘deprived’
1.00 curiosity] above del ‘curiosity’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3560,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3560