From T. H. Farrer   20 September 1868

Eashing | Godalming.

20 Sept/68

My dear Mr Darwin,

I venture to add a few words to the Lobelia paper. if you happen to think it worth printing. The comparison of structure & function in neighbouring genera always seems to me most interesting.1 It was especially so in the Orchid—2

I was delighted with an opening bud of Campanula Rotundifolia— The adaptation of Corolla, anthers and brush is beautiful. The brush & its rows I found in Lindley—but he says Brongniart said it had nothing to do with fertilization—true enough as regards self fertilization3

I wont put any more questions to you though I am sorely tempted

Sincerely yours | T H Farrer

C Darwin Esq FRS

You wont be much more bothered with me as holiday & flowers are alike nearly over.

1
In Farrer 1868, p. 262, Farrer also described structures similar to those of Lobelia in Campanula and Jasione. In Lindley 1853, Campanula and Jasione were in what was then called the order Campanulaceae, while Lobelia was in Lobeliaceae; all three genera are now placed in the family Campanulaceae (Mabberley 1997).
3
Farrer described a ‘brush’, or a ring of hairs or bristles, on the style of Lobelia that swept the pollen out of the flower as the flower opened; the brush in Campanula differed in being longer and in consisting of ten rows of bristles set opposite the ten anther-cells (Farrer 1868, pp. 260–2). See Lindley 1853, p. 690, for Adolphe Brongniart’s discussion of the ‘collecting hairs’ and what he thought was their lack of connection to ‘the fertilising process’.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-6381,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-6381