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From Charles Cardale Babington   18 May 1864

Cambridge

18 May 1864

Dear Darwin,

It was only within the last few days that I heard that your health had been so bad recently and it is now a great pleasure to learn you are materially better.1

I do not think that Lythrum hyssopifolium2 is come into flower, but will see the next time that I go to the Botanic Garden.3 We had it there last year & I hope that it has sprung from selfsown seeds again; but do not know as yet. If we have it I will take care that flowers are sent as you wish. I do not know where to get a wild specimen with the least certainty: but it is the same as wild in the garden.

I am just about finishing my short course of lectures.4 The class has been a good one, from 35–45 in attendance and attentive.

Yours very truly | Charles C. Babington

1
No letter to Babington concerning CD’s health or Lythrum hyssopifolium has been found (see n. 2, below).
2
CD was writing a paper on dimorphism in Lythrum salicaria, and was evidently seeking specimens of other species in the genus so that he could include observations on them in his article. See also letter to J. D. Hooker, [15 May 1864], letter from C. C. Babington, 21 May 1864, and letter to H. C. Watson, 28 May [1864]. For a discussion of CD’s experiments with Lythrum, see letter to J. D. Hooker, 13 April [1864] and n. 7, and Appendix III.
3
Babington was professor of botany at Cambridge University and keeper of the University Herbarium (DNB); his duties would have included assisting in the management of the University Botanic Garden.
4
Babington gave an annual course of lectures during the Easter term that included field excursions (see A. M. Babington ed. 1897). For a discussion of Babington’s teaching at Cambridge, see Walters 1981, pp. 67, 70, Brooke 1993, p. 161, and Allen 1999, pp. 5–6, 9.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-4499,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-4499