Ɛpsilon

To J. D. Hooker   5 April [1867]

Down

Ap. 5th

My dear H.

C. Nägeli writes to me that he has worked hard for 4 years on Hieracium to show causes & manner & steps of variation,—hybridism &c &c, & I shd. think from a very long letter that his results were valuable.1 Now he wants me to get for him a complete set of British forms & will give in exchange a large set of German & Alpine forms.— Is there not some one in England who has made a special study of this genus?— If you cannot advise me better, should I apply to Babington (if he is well again) or to H. C. Watson??2

I am sorry to trouble you,—mere name & address wd suffice.—3

Yours affect | C. Darwin

[Enclosure 1]

In Annales du Museum Tom. X. p. 471— A new genus of Umbelliferæ is described, Drusa, said to be confined to the Canary Isld.— the pericarp is furnished with elegant stellate hooks (see Plate at p. 456). Now this seed must have been developed or formed when mammals existed to transport it, ie not in Canaries.4 Do you at all agree??

Copied from ancient notes of mine.—

[Enclosure 2]

(I possess old good note from Lowe on the very different soil of P. Santo compared with Madeira (& on proportion of endemic plants in P. Santo) so that some plants which grow in latter will not grow in P. Santo.—)5

(You remember, of course, Watson’s paper in Hooker J. of Bot. on the changes which some Azorean plants underwent when cultivated in England.—)6

Endorsement: ‘Replied 8.IV/67’

1
The letter from Carl Wilhelm von Nägeli, which was written on 31 March 1867 (see letter to C. W. von Nägeli, [after 8 April 1867]), has not been found. Nägeli published on Hieracium (hawkweeds) in a number of articles in the Sitzungberichte der königlichen bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu München 1866.
2
Hooker had told CD of Charles Cardale Babington’s illness in his letter of 4 December 1866 (Correspondence vol. 14); CD also refers to Hewett Cottrell Watson.
4
The text and plate mentioned are in A. P. de Candolle, ‘Mémoire sur le Drusa, genre nouveau de la famille des Ombellifères’, Annales du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle 10 (1807): 466–71.
5
The references are to Richard Thomas Lowe, and to the islands of Madeira and Porto Santo. See Correspondence vol. 6, letter from R. T. Lowe, 12 April 1856.
6
The reference is to Watson’s ‘Supplementary notes on the botany of the Azores’, in the London Journal of Botany, edited by William Jackson Hooker (London Journal of Botany 6 (1847): 380–97). CD referred to Watson’s observations in Origin, p. 140. See also Natural selection, p. 126. The sections beginning ‘In Annales …’ and ‘Copied from …’ are on separate sheets of paper. They have been assigned to this letter on the basis of their position in the Darwin Archive–CUL.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

Enclosure 1
1.5 Do] after del ‘Do you [illeg]’
2.1 Copied from ancient notes of mine.—] added in left margin
Enclosure 2
1.1 (I possess … grow in P. Santo.—) 1.3] square brackets in MS
1.2 (& … Santo)] interl
2.1 (You remember … England.—) 2.2] square brackets in MS

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5488,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5488