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From M. T. Masters   30 April 1869

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

April 30 1869

My dear Sir,

On the chance that you may not have seen it I forward to you by book post a paper on the “Origin of Genera”—1 If it is of the slightest interest to you, please retain it, but if you have it already return it to me at any time— No doubt you saw Decaisne’s letter on the apple last week. He surely cannot mean that there are no intermediates between Malus & Pirus2

The other day at Chiswick Dr Hogg, Mr Moore Mr Barron the Superintendent3 & myself were looking at a tree in full blossom & none of us could tell for certain whether it was an apple or a pear— To be sure we had not the fruit before us—

faithfully yrs. | Maxwell. T. Masters

C. Darwin Esq

1
Masters refers to Cope 1868. There is an annotated offprint of this paper in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL.
2
Joseph Decaisne wrote a reply to an enquiry that the editors of the Gardeners’ Chronicle had sent to him about the ‘Paradise apple’; it was published in Gardeners’ Chronicle, 24 April 1869, p. 443. Malus is the genus of apples; Pyrus that of pears. Decaisne had written: ‘I have accumulated materials which do not permit me to adopt the theory of the transformation of one species into another, though I admit that species are very variable. The “Malus” remain Apples, as the “Pirus” remain Pears, in spite of the diversity of their forms and the infinite number of their varieties.’ The paradise apple was Malus pumila var. paradisiaca or Pyrus dasyphylla; both names are synonyms of Malus ×dasyphylla.
3
Robert Hogg, Thomas Moore, and Archibald F. Barron, superintendent of the Royal Horticultural Society’s gardens at South Kensington and Chiswick.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-6721,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-6721