To Daniel Oliver   1 January [1875]1

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.

Jan. 1st. (A happy new year to you.)

My dear Prof. Oliver.

I will send off this afternoon the specs. of U. montana by Railway.— I have had fine sport, finding plenty of prey in the bladders.2 But Genlisea from Brazil & Africa has been grand, nay magnificent, as they catch plenty of minute creatures (chiefly acari) by quite another plan, viz like an eel-trap but far more complex.3 It is really a wonderful plant, with its bladder, & pipe (15 times as long as the bladder) & with 2 wonderful spiral filaments which likewise apparently catch insects.—

I do not feel quite sure whether I may use the name “Genlisea”: I shd much wish to do so, as the plant is described by Warming by this name, & as from my point of view it amply deserves a distinct generic name.—4

If I do not hear, I will assume that I may speak of the American & African species as “Genlisea”.—

I have not yet had time to examine the other sp. of Utricularia, but assuredly will do so, as I am curious to know whether the sp. in all parts of the world catch & feed on insects.5

Yours very sincerely obliged | Ch. Darwin

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from Daniel Oliver, 2 January 1875 (Correspondence vol. 23).
2
Oliver had sent specimens of Utricularia montana (a synonym of U. alpina) on 19 December 1874 (see Correspondence vol. 22, letter from Daniel Oliver, 19 December 1874 and n. 2).
3
Oliver had sent Genlisea specimens with his letter of 24 December 1874 (Correspondence vol. 22); in this genus of corkscrew plants the linear leaves or tube-leaves are spirally coiled subterranean leaves that lack chlorophyll and resemble roots; these tubes divide into two branches with a bulb-like cavity formed at the point of division. The former class Acari (mites and ticks) is now subsumed within the class Arachnida (arachnids). Eel traps were traditionally made of woven willow, with an inverted cone at the base, allowing the eel to enter easily but making it hard to get out.
4
Eugenius Warming, in his paper ‘Bidrag til Kundskaben om Lentibulariaceæ’ (Contribution to the knowledge of Lentibulariaceæ; Warming 1874, pp. 33–45 and Pl. V), had described and figured the Brazilian species Genlisea ornata (a synonym of G. aurea), in great anatomical and physiological detail.
5
Oliver had sent CD fragments of several species of Utricularia in October 1874 (see Correspondence vol. 22, letter to Daniel Oliver, 14 October 1874 and n. 2; see also Insectivorous plants, pp. 442–4).

Manuscript Alterations and Comments

0.2 Jan. 1st.] above del ‘Dec. 31st’
0.2 (A … you.)] square brackets in ms
1.3 has] altered from ‘have’
1.3 nay magnificent,] interl
1.3 (] over comma
1.4 )] over comma
2.3 distinct] interl

Please cite as “DCP-LETT-9795F,” in Ɛpsilon: The Charles Darwin Collection accessed on 5 June 2025, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/dcp-data/letters/DCP-LETT-9795F