Ɛpsilon

To A. G. More   26 September [1862]1

Cliff Cottage | Bournemouth

Sept. 26th

My dear Sir

I thank you cordially for the specimens received this morning; & for all the trouble which you have so kindly taken.2 Putting on one side the 3 imperfect capsules, 6 are left, of which the labellum had been removed.3 In comparison with the 5 naturally fertilised capsules, two of the mutilated produced as much seed & seemed to have been fully fertilised; the four others produced very much less seed. So that the result in a limited degree supports my belief in use of labellum; but I can now see that a dozen other capsules from mutilated flowers ought to be compared with a dozen naturally fertilised. But this would not be worth your time & trouble.—

I shd., however, be very much obliged if you would answer me two questions (writing to Down where I return on Monday),4 viz; whether you chose average capsules of the naturally fertilised; for if you picked out the finest, in this case I shd. doubt the result; and secondly whether you removed only the further or distal or articulated part of the Labellum, as you speak in your letter of removing the labellum.—

Pray believe me | My dear Sir | Yours very truly obliged | Ch. Darwin

I sincerely hope that your health is reestablished.

1
This letter was originally published in Correspondence vol. 10, transcribed from a copy (DAR 146: 406); the copy has been annotated with the year.
2
More’s letter has not been found. The reference is to specimens of the orchid Epipactis palustris (see n. 2, below).
3
In the summer of 1861, More had carried out an experiment for CD on the orchid Epipactis palustris, in order to test CD’s ideas about the importance of the labellum in the process of insect pollination in that species. More removed the distal half of the labellum from two flowers before they opened, and compared the seed-capsules produced with those from undamaged flowers (see Orchids, pp. 101 n.–102 n., and Correspondence vol. 9, letters to A. G. More, 7 July [1861], 19 July [1861], 23 September [1861], and 1 October [1861]); the capsules from the damaged flowers were smaller, and, in 1862, CD asked More to confirm these results under more rigorous conditions (see letter to A. G. More, 18 May [1862]). CD published More’s later results in ‘Fertilization of orchids’, pp. 149–50 (Collected papers 2: 146).
4
Although CD left Bournemouth on Monday 29 September 1862, he stayed in London that evening, returning to Down House on Tuesday 30 September (see ‘Journal’ (Correspondence vol. 10, Appendix II)).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.00 capsules,] interl
1.00 from mutilated flowers] interl
2.00 in this] ‘in’ after del ‘for’
2.00 or articulated] interl
2.00 speak] after del ‘spoke’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-3739,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-3739