From L. C. or Margaret Susan Wedgwood to [Emma Darwin?]¹   [May 1865]

The letter is in the hand of either Lucy Caroline or Margaret Susan Wedgwood, CD’s nieces, who, along with their sister, Katherine Elizabeth Sophy Wedgwood, had previously sent botanical observations (see letter from L. C. Wedgwood, [April–May 1865?] and n. 2). It is conjectured that this was part of a letter to Emma Darwin. CD published this information in ‘Specific difference in Primula’, p. 448, and Forms of flowers, pp. 70–1, stating that it came from a friend in Surrey (see n. 4, below).

The observations are of the numbers of the two different forms of the dimorphic oxlip and are discussed in ‘Specific difference in Primula’, p. 448, and Forms of flowers, pp. 70–1. CD used these data as evidence that the crosses producing oxlips in nature would probably be between different forms of the two parent species (see n. 3, below). For CD’s interest in the relationship between oxlips, primroses, and cowslips, see the letter from L. C. Wedgwood, [April–May 1865?] and n. 3.

By a heteromorphic union, CD meant a cross in which long-styled or short-styled flowers of separate plants had the pollen of the other form placed on their stigmas; he referred to crosses in which pollen of the same flower form was placed on the stigma as homomorphic (‘Dimorphic condition in Primula’, p. 87; see also Collected papers 2: 120). CD later substituted the terms legitimate and illegitimate for heteromorphic and homomorphic respectively. The figures collected by his nieces indicated to him that the plants had been derived from heteromorphic (legitimate) crosses, because if they had been derived from homomorphic (illegitimate) crosses, ‘either the long- or short-styled form would have greatly preponderated in number’ (‘Specific difference in Primula’, p. 448; see also Forms of flowers, pp. 70–1).

Leith Hill Place, Surrey, was the home of Josiah Wedgwood III, CD’s brother-in-law, and father of Lucy Caroline and Margaret Susan Wedgwood (Freeman 1978).