From Edward Frankland   15 July 1873

Royal College of Chemistry | Kensington Museum

July 15/73.

My dear Sir

I shall deem it a privilege if I can be of any service to you in your very interesting investigations of Drosera. Herewith I forward some pure carbonate of soda (which I prefer to carbonate of ammonia) and if you will wash the glands in about 20 grams of it dissolved in 1 oz. of distilled water, I will do my best to discover what the solvent you mention consists of.1 I fear it will be necessary to wash a very large number of leaflets, say 8 oz. or so, to get a sufficiently concentrated solution.2

I should not think muriatic acid probable, but possibly formic, acetic, oxalic or lactic acid may be present.3 However we must not prejudge the case.

Believe me | Yours sincerely | E. Frankland

1
CD was investigating the chemical composition of the digestive fluid in Drosera (see letter to Edward Frankland, 12 July 1873).
2
In Insectivorous plants, p. 88, CD described washing 445 leaves in a solution of distilled water given to him by Frankland.

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-8979,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-8979