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From John Traherne Moggridge   17 May [1865]1

14 Charles St. | Paddington

May 17

Dear Sir

I send by rail a few plants of Lythrum Græfferi which I procured from wet places at Mentone—2 The blossoming of this plant was so unusually late that I was unable to make any observations— I also enclose some bulbs of two species of Romulea.—3

Are you aware that Pulmonarias are dimorphic?—4

yours very sincerely | J. Traherne Moggridge

There are a few seeds & 3 plants of Primula marginata5

1
The year is established by the reference to Romulea (see n. 3, below).
2
CD had first obtained specimens of the trimorphic Lythrum graefferi in 1862 in order to compare it with L. salicaria (see Correspondence vol. 10, letter to Daniel Oliver, [17 September 1862], and letter to J. D. Hooker, 6 October [1862]; the specimens are in DAR 142). He gave a brief description of the plant as having ‘a close general correspondence in structure’ with L. salicaria in ‘Three forms of Lythrum salicaria’, pp. 189–90 (Collected papers 2: 123; see also Forms of flowers, p. 165). His notes on L. graefferi are in DAR 27.2: 40–2. CD continued to perform crossing experiments on L. salicaria from 1865 to 1867 in order to establish the relationship between ‘illegitimate unions’ and hybrids (see letter to J. D. Hooker, 22 December [1865] and nn. 5 and 6). See also letter to M. E. Wichura, 3 February [1865] and n. 9.
3
In July 1864, CD had asked Moggridge to send additional Romulea bulbs when he returned to Mentone the coming winter (see Correspondence vol. 12, letter from J. T. Moggridge, 15 July 1864 and n. 2, and letter to J. T. Moggridge, 1[7] July 1864).
4
CD’s son William Erasmus Darwin had discovered dimorphism in Pulmonaria in May 1863 (see Correspondence vol. 11, letters from W. E. Darwin, 4 May [1863] and 8 May [1863]). CD and William made extensive observations on P. angustifolia in 1864 (see Correspondence vol. 12). CD’s notes on Pulmonaria are in DAR 110: A40–94 and B15–17. He discussed P. angustifolia in ‘Illegitimate offspring of dimorphic and trimorphic plants’, p. 431, and in Forms of flowers, pp. 104–10, 239, 252, and 287. CD and Moggridge first discussed dimorphism in July 1864 (see Correspondence vol. 12, letter from J. T. Moggridge, 15 July 1864, and letter to J. T. Moggridge, 1[7] July 1864).
5
After an earlier examination of a short-styled specimen, CD had stated that there was ‘hardly any doubt’ that the species was dimorphic (‘Dimorphic condition in Primula’, p. 81; Collected papers 2: 48). Moggridge had enclosed specimens of the two forms of Primula marginata (silver-edged primrose) in his letter of 15 July [1864] (Correspondence vol. 12; see also ibid., letter to J. T. Moggridge, 1[7] July [1864]). Moggridge described the species in Contributions to the flora of Mentone (Moggridge 1865–8, pl. 11).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-4835,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-4835