To J. D. Hooker   8 September [1874]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent.

Sept 8th

My dear Hooker

You are very good about Dionæa. Lady Dorothy writes most civilly, but has no plants.2 I have only a few observations which I want to make. The Kew plants have never well recovered their journey, but I am nursing them to the best of my power.3

I am very anxious when you come here to show you some structural points in Utricularia & get your judgment on them. I have spent full 3 weeks on this plant, but have made out but little in proportion. It cannot digest, but certainly absorbs the products of decay, whether only ammonia or other matter I am not sure.—

I fear there is no chance of your being able to send me a few bladders of the epiphytic Utricularia; I shd. excessively like to examine them.4

Ever yours | C. Darwin

Do come here.—

You were a good Doctor about Acacia Farnesiana—. it is now growing well, as is Mimosa albida—!5

Lady Dorothy has lent me a magnificent plant of Drosera dichotoma.—6

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from D. F. Nevill, 3 September 1874.
2
Hooker had tried to obtain specimens of Dionaea muscipula, the Venus fly trap, for CD; he had contacted Dorothy Fanny Nevill, who had a large collection of tropical plants (see letter from D. F. Nevill, 2 September [1874], and letter from J. D. Hooker, [after 4 September 1874]).
3
CD had received two specimens of Dionaea muscipula from Kew on 31 August 1874 (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Outwards book, p. 323).
5
For CD’s difficulties in growing Mimosa albida and Acacia farnesiana (sweet acacia), see the letter to W. T. Thiselton Dyer, 28 [June 1874]. Acacia farnesiana is a synonym of Vachellia farnesiana.
6
See letter from D. F. Nevill, 3 September 1874.

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

1.3 never] above del ‘been’
2.1 structural] interl
2.2 spent] after del ‘w’

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9629,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9629