To J. D. Hooker   30 May [1862]1

Down

May 30th

My dear Hooker

Infinite thanks for 3 grand plants of Melastomas;2 if anything can be safely made out, I have now good opportunity. I saw again today the 2 sets of plants of Heterocentron raised from the two pollens from same flower, & you never could imagine what a marvellous difference in stature.3 Also many thanks for Vanilla:4 it is very different indeed from any orchid which I have seen, & has pollen like Cypripedium(!) & very curious stigma. But oh Lord what will become of my book on Variation:5 I am involved in a multiplicity of experiments.— I have been amusing myself by looking at the small flowers of Viola. If Oliver has had time to study them,6 he will have seen the curious case (as it seems to me) which I have just made clearly out, viz that in these flowers the few pollen-grains are never shed or never leave the anther-cells, but emit long pollen-tubes, which penetrate the stigma. Today I got the anther with the included pollen-grains (now empty) at one end, & a bundle of tubes penetrating the stigmatic tissue at the other end; I got the whole under the microscope without breaking the tubes: I wonder whether the stigma pours some fluid into the anther so as to excite the included grains. It is a rather odd case of correlation that in the double sweet Violet, the little flowers are double; i.e. have a multitude of minute scales representing the petals. What queer little flowers they are.—7

Have you had time to read poor dear Henslow’s life:8 it has interested me for the man’s sake, & what I did not think possible, has even exalted his character in my estimation. But I much fear that the Public will think it dull. It will, however, be useful to any clergyman trying to follow, longo intervallo, Henslow’s footsteps.—

How bothered with visitors & hard worked you are.9

Good Night | Charles Darwin

P.S. Tell Oliver, I think he must by mistake, when I asked him, have opened the ovarium of female Lychnis dioica: anyhow I can find no vestige of ovules—10 Tell him that my fancied dimorphisms, like that of Primula, of Oxalis acetosella is all a confounded mistake; only great variability in length of pistils.—11

I have just looked again at V. canina—the case odder;12 only 2 stamens which embrace the stigma have pollen; the 3 other stamens have no anther-cells & no pollen.— These 2 fertile anthers are of different shape from the 3 sterile others; & the scale representing lower lip is larger & differently shaped from the 4 other scales, representing 4 other petals.—

In V. odorata, (single flower) all 5 stamens produce pollen. But I daresay all this is known.—

1
The year is established by the reference to Jenyns 1862 (see n. 8, below).
5
CD refers to the account of variation in domesticated plants and animals (Variation) that he had begun to prepare in January 1860 after the publication of Origin. He suspended work on Variation in July 1861 to produce Orchids, and, because of ill health, had only recently turned his attention once more to Variation (see Correspondence vols. 8 and 9, and ‘Journal’ (Correspondence vol. 10, Appendix II)).
6
Daniel Oliver had talked of including an account of dimorphism in Viola in his review of ‘Dimorphic condition in Primula’ ([Oliver] 1862c) (see letter from Daniel Oliver, 10 April 1862). See also letters to Daniel Oliver, 12 [April 1862] and 15 April [1862].
7
There are notes by CD on his experiments with Viola in DAR 111: 3–5, dated 28 May and 30 May 1862.
8
Jenyns 1862. John Stevens Henslow, Hooker’s father-in-law, died in May 1861. See also letter to Leonard Jenyns, 24 May [1862] and n. 2.
10
In the letter to J. D. Hooker, 25 November [1861] (Correspondence vol. 9), CD had asked Hooker whether he or Oliver knew whether ‘the male of Lychnis dioica’ had ‘rudimentary ovules in the ovarium’. Oliver either had observed or subsequently did observe such ovules (see ibid., letters to Daniel Oliver, 30 November [1861] and 7 December [1861]).
12
See n. 7, above.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.2 of Heterocentron 1.3] interl
1.5 which I have seen,] interl
1.12 included] interl
1.12 empty)] parenthesis over comma
1.15 the anther] ‘the’ interl
1.16 are] after del ‘with’
5.1 opened] before del comma
5.3 , like that of Primula,] interl
6.1 which] before del ‘p’
6.2 the stigma] ‘the’ interl
6.2 & no pollen 6.3] interl
6.3 fertile] interl
6.3 sterile] interl
7.1 (single flower)] above del illeg

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3575,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3575