Ɛpsilon

To T. H. Farrer   10 April 1874

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

Ap. 10 1874

My dear Farrer

I am delighted to hear about Coronilla. You must publish an account, & especially with diagrams.1 Pray attend whether the bee penetrates & ruptures with its proboscis the cells on the calyx, as I believe to be the case with the nectaries of Orchis mascula &c.2

I do not quite understand the claw on the vexellum, but I will shew your note to my son Frank.3

yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

LS(A)

1
See letter from T. H. Farrer, [before 10 April 1874] and n. 2. Farrer published a short paper on fertilisation in Coronilla (crown vetch) with two diagrams in Nature (Farrer 1874).
2
In Orchids, p. 15, CD had described the rupture of the rostellum by bees as they tried to get at the nectary in Orchis mascula (the early purple orchid).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.2 & ruptures] interl in CD’s hand

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9400,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9400