To J. D. Hooker   21 [July 1866]

Down.

21st

My dear H.

If you can name enclosed, I shall be grateful. By gardening books I conclude it is L. hirsutus; according them it cannot be L. pilosus.—1 The standard is often reddish purple instead of white. I sent to nursery garden, whence I bought seed,2 & could only hear that it was “the common blue Lupine” The man saying “he was no scholard & did not know Latin & that parties who make experiments ought to find out the names.—”

Yours affect | C. Darwin

He might have added & not trouble their friends.

Endorsement: ‘July | 1866’

1
CD was interested in the species of Lupinus, subsequently identified by Hooker as L. pilosus (letter from J. D. Hooker, [24 July 1866]), as illustrating the difficulty of crossing papilionaceous flowers (see second letter to Gardeners’ Chronicle, [before 11 August 1866]).
2
No record of the purchase of lupin seed has been found. CD often obtained specimens and seed from the nursery firm of James Veitch (see Correspondence vol. 13).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5162,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5162