To J. D. Hooker   23 October [1873]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

Oct 23d

My dear Hooker

How good you have been about the plants, but indeed I did not intend you to write about Drosophyllum, though I shall be very glad to have a specimen.2 Experiments on other plants lead to fresh experiments. Neptunia is evidently a hopeless case.—3 I shall be very glad of the other plants whenever they are ready. I constantly fear that I shall become to you a giant of bores.

I am delighted to hear that you are at work on Nepenthes, & I hope that you will have good luck.— It is good news that the fluid is acid: you ought to collect a good lot & have the acid analysed.— I hope that the work will give you as much pleasure as analogous work has me.— I do not think any discovery ever gave me more pleasure than proving a true act of digestion in Drosera. I am now just beginning to draw up my account of Drosera & its allies, but it will take me many months.4

I have become profoundly interested over Desmodium, & sometime I must tell you what little I have made out about it.5 I believe Frank has been invited by you to Kew (By the way Lenny enjoyed meeting Dr Huggins & the other great guns at your house) for Sunday: could you on this day permit him to look over (I am sure he wd. be careful) the whole dried collection of genus Desmodium, & even perhaps of any closely allied genus; I want to hear the character of the leaves in most of the species, & the degree of variability of the leaves in the D. gyrans itself.— I have given him instructions on the chance.—6

Lastly have you any seed of Lathyrus nissolia?7 Or can you tell me where I shd. have a chance of begging a few; but do not write yourself—only give Frank address.—

Yours affecty | C. Darwin

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter to Francis Darwin, 22 October 1873.
2
Hooker was working on insectivorous plants for CD, and had written to the Dublin Botanic Garden for a specimen of Drosophyllum lusitanicum (Portuguese sundew or dewy pine; letter from J. D. Hooker, 20 October 1873 and nn. 1 and 3).
3
See letter from J. D. Hooker, 20 October 1873. CD discussed Neptunia oleracea (a synonym of N. prostrata, the sensitive neptunia or water mimosa) in Movement in plants.
4
CD’s account was published as Insectivorous plants in 1875.
5
CD published on Desmodium in Movement in plants.
6
See letters to Francis Darwin, 22 October 1873 and 23 October [1873]. CD also refers to Leonard Darwin and William Huggins. Desmodium gyrans is now Codariocalyx motorius, the telegraph or semaphore plant.
7
For CD’s interest in Lathyrus nissolia (the grass vetchling), see the letter to Francis Darwin, 23 October [1873] and n. 2.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.4 they are] interl
1.4 I … bores. 1.5] added
2.00 analogous work] above del ‘it’
3.3 & the] ‘the’ interl
3.5 genus] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9108,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9108