To W. E. Darwin   [14–17 May 1864]1

[Down]

P.S. I begin to think it would be far safer to measure pollen dry . Some time try whether you could not put thin glass over dry scattered pollen & secure thin glass over the slide by 2 little balls of wax as big as pin’s heads.— You must be tired of my requests, otherwise I would send another red Cowslip to be measured dry.—2 The Pulmonaria pollen looks very different size dry.— Look for the shrivelled & small grain in long-styled Pulmonaria in dry state.—3

incomplete

1
The date is established by the reference to observing shrivelled and small grains of Pulmonaria angustifolia pollen, as CD had mentioned in his letter of 14 May [1864]; William responded to CD’s request to observe the pollen dry in his letter of 18 May [1864]. See also letter from H. E. Darwin to W. E. Darwin, [18 May 1864].
2
William had already sketched pollen for CD from the two forms of wild yellow cowslip and from an equal-styled red cowslip (see memorandum from W. E. Darwin, [30 April 1864] and nn. 3 and 4). In his letters to W. E. Darwin of 3 May [1864] and 5 May [1864], CD had asked William to soak the yellow cowslip pollen the longest before measuring it; he included an equal-styled red flower from a new seedling in the second letter.
3
For CD’s interest in the shrivelled pollen-grains from long-styled Pulmonaria flower-buds, see the letter to W. E. Darwin, 14 May [1864] and n. 6).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.1 dry] after del ‘quit’
1.2 scattered] interl
1.5 Look] ‘L’ over ‘l’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-4479,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-4479