To Edouard Bornet   20 August [1867]1

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

Aug 20

Dear Sir

I thank you sincerely for your great & renewed kindness in sending me the seeds of the Draba.2 I am so much engaged this autumn that I do not think I shall sow them & no doubt they will keep alive until next year, when they will be of great interest to me.3

Owing to the same cause I sowed only four lots of the seeds of the Papaver this spring & have made only a few experiments. Papaver vagum, depressum, Lecoqii came up quite true, but the seedlings of P. pinnatifidum varied a good deal.4

With sincere thank & my best respect I remain dear Sir | yours very faithfully | Ch. Darwin

LS

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from Edouard Bornet, [before 20 August 1867].
2
Bornet sent CD seeds of ten varieties of Draba verna (see letter from Edouard Bornet, [before 20 August 1867] and n. 3).
3
No record of CD’s performing experiments with Draba verna has been found.
4
Papaver vagum was described in Jordan 1860, pp. 458–9; it is now generally subsumed within P. dubium, as are P. depressum and P. lecoqii. CD recorded the results of his experiments with P. vagum seeds sent by Bornet in Cross and self fertilisation, pp. 108–9. In 1876, CD suggested experiments for John Scott to perform with varieties of P. somniferum (letter to John Scott, 1 July 1876, Calendar no. 10555).

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-5611,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-5611