To the Linnean Society   22 February [1867]1

Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

Feb. 22

My dear Sir

I send by this post a paper which has been sent to me by a gentleman at the Cape of Good Hope with the request that I would communicate it, if I thought fit, to the Linn. Soc.2 On a subject on which I feel so much interest I do not feel capable of judging whether it is worthy of being read & published by the Society. The paper describes a new species of that extraordinary genus Bonatea, & gives some new & curious details on its fertilization; but the paper is too diffuse & perhaps gives too many extraneous remarks. It will be difficult for the referee, should the paper be read & published, to determine what illustrations shd be added;3 but perhaps the Council may think that enough or too much has already been published on the fertilzation of Orchids.4

My dear Sir | yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin

LS

1
The year is established by the reference to Weale 1867 (see n. 2, below), which was read at the Linnean Society in March 1867.
2
James Philip Mansel Weale enclosed a manuscript with his letter of 9 January 1867; the manuscript (now in the Linnean Society archives, SP1249) was later published as Weale 1867. Weale lived in Bedford, Cape Colony.
3
The paper was read at the Linnean Society on 7 March 1867, and was published in the Journal of the Linnean Society (Botany); one illustration showing four figures was included (see Weale 1867, p. 473). On the publishing of the paper, see the letter to the Linnean Society, 9 December [1867], and the letter to J. P. M. Weale, 9 December [1867]. An annotated copy of Weale 1867 is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL.
4
Papers on orchids appearing in the Journal of the Linnean Society (Botany) following the publication of Orchids and ‘Three sexual forms of Catasetum tridentatum’ included Trimen 1863 and 1864, Crüger 1864, and Moggridge 1864; the first three of these were communicated to the Linnean Society by CD.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5411,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5411