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From Maxwell Tylden Masters   28 March 1867

Gardeners’ Chronicle | & Agricultural Gazette Office, | 41, Wellington Street, Strand, W.C.

March 28 1867

My dear Sir

I venture to send you the enclosed though I fear I may add to your vexations by so doing—1 You will see at the end a reference to yourself—2 The lip was smashed so I cut it away— the pollen masses I placed on the stigmas—3

—I hope you received your copy of the Congress Report and also Dr. Hildebrand’s— if you have not already forwarded the latter or have any inconvenience in so doing I can forward it from hence without troubling you.4

Faithfully yrs | Maxwell T. Masters

[Enclosure]

As the sexes of Orchids form a subject of considerable interest, I beg to forward you the accompanying specimens of Cypripedium insigne. Of this I have several plants, all however originally derived from the same piece, but in spite of numerous attempts, I have uniformly failed to fertilise the flowers. The seed-vessel swells and the flower fades as usual, but no seed is produced. It appears to me that my plant produces a male flower only, and is not hermaphrodite. Have any others of your correspondents made a similar observation? I enclose a flower of Cypripedium insigne and two barren seed-vessels, to which the pollen of C. barbatum and C. venustum was applied this year.5 To prove that the pollen masses of the plant in question are good, I send also a seed-vessel of C. barbatum, fertilised with the pollen of one of the same flowers of C. insigne, and which is full of seeds. A.D.B.

1
The original enclosure, a letter to the Gardeners’ Chronicle from ‘A.D.B.’, has not been found; the version included above is from the text published in the Gardeners’ Chronicle, 6 April 1867, p. 350. See also Collected papers 2: 134. A.D.B. has not been identified.
2
The published letter from A.D.B. did not mention CD (see n. 1, above); however, the Gardeners’ Chronicle editors attached the following note: The specimens forwarded appeared on examination to be perfectly formed as regards their stamens and pistils, but perfectly destitute of ovules. On forwarding them to Mr. Darwin, that gentleman kindly favoured us with the following remarks. EDS. A.D.B.’s letter with the editors’ remark, and CD’s reply are in Gardeners’ Chronicle, 6 April 1867, p. 350 (Collected papers 2: 134–5). For a draft of CD’s reply, see the letter to M. T. Masters, [28 March – 5 April 1867]. The editors of the Gardeners’ Chronicle in 1867 were Maxwell Tylden Masters and Thomas Moore (DNB).
3
Masters presumably included a flower of Cypripedium insigne (lady’s-slipper orchid), cutting away part of the damaged labellum (the ‘slipper’), and placed its own pollen on the stigmas.
4
Masters had evidently sent a copy of the report, International Horticultural Exhibition 1866; CD was a vice-president of the committee of the botanical congress, and Masters was the secretary (see Correspondence vol. 14, letter from M. T. Masters, March 1866). Masters also evidently sent a copy for CD to forward to Friedrich Hildebrand (the report contained a paper by Hildebrand, Hildebrand 1866a). CD had forwarded the manuscript of Hildebrand’s paper to Masters the previous year (see Correspondence vol. 14, letter to Friedrich Hildebrand, 16 May [1866], and this volume, letter from Friedrich Hildebrand, 18 March 1867 and n. 1).
5
CD had observed several species of Cypripedium, including C. insigne, C. barbatum, and C. venustum; however, he had not performed crossing experiments with them (see Orchids, pp. 270–6).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5467,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5467