WCP5305

[1]

Down Bromley Kent

22^d. May / [18]60

My dear Hooker

I was very glad to see Thwaites'¹ letter: he makes same objection almost totidem verbis² as Lyell³ did at first. It was [a] great omission ^{in my part} not discussing this subject, (as I will if there be future Edition) for I think I can remove this difficulty.—

That is [a] curious fact about Beetle: something analogous is known in certain crustaceans; but hardly well enough made out in the case of Beetle to quote. — Have you Pyrolas at Kew⁴? if so for Heaven sake observe [2] curvature of pistil towards gangway to nectary. If Bees visit ^{this plant,} it is best of all to observe them.

You have turned the tables in case of Lavatera with a vengeance against me. Godron⁵ in his work "sur l’Espece"⁶ gives apparently the best & most carefully worked out cases, which I have met with, of seeds alive & long buried in earth.

I fear by appearance, Leschenaultia will not seed, possibly owing to conditions of life; for I can [3] see no sign of incipient fertilisation.—

I have had lately two most kind letters from A[sa]. Gray⁷, with 22£ [sic] from [the] American Publisher!⁸ I have had, also, [a] capital letter from Wallace, after reading the Origin.⁹

Lyell tells me that Binney¹⁰ has published in Proc[eedings]: of Manchester Soc[iet]^y. paper trying to show that coal plants must have grown in very marine marshes—¹¹ Do you remember how savage you were [4] long years ago at my broaching such a conjecture? —

I am sincerely sorry to hear about Carpenter’s¹² disappointment, but I wonder he cares about it—

Poor Etty¹³ keeps nearly [the] same, but we think certainly improves a little.— Your kind expressions about her pleased me us much.—

My dear old friend | Yours affect[ionately] | C. Darwin [signature]

[5] P. S. As Horse-chesnuts [sic] have male flowers & hermaphrodite flowers I have begun ^wished to examine their pollen, & this has made me observe a thing which has surprised me.— All the flowers now open on my several trees are male with rudimentary pistil ^with pollen shedding; so that I began to think my memory had deceived me & that the pistil was never well developed; but on opening buds near [the] end of each ^little lateral twig of ^the flower-truss, I find plenty of hermaphrodite flowers with pistils well developed. So that on all my trees there has been a gigantic crop of quite useless [6] male flowers, with millions of pollen-grains wasted, for there is not a female flower nearly open.— Now will you just look ^{if you think [the] fact odd enough} at Kew at Horse chesnuts [sic]; any[?] ^only you must remember that your trees will be ^{7 or} 10 days earlier than mine; so that I daresay your hermaphrodite flowers & males from [the] upper flower of each side twig will be open; but I daresay you will be able to see whether the lower flowers on each little side twig are exclusively male.— If this is [the] case elsewhere & in [a] native country, it w[oul]^d be [a] great ^{& curious} blunder in dame nature. I shall look to pollen hereafter.— The pollen of useless males seems good & swells in water.—¹⁴

[7] P. S. 2^d. I think I shall make out [a] good case of [the] want of perfection in Horse-chesnut [sic]— I find 140 flowers on a small truss — I think each truss produces only one or sometimes two seeds — & I have got vague notion that in each ovary there are at first many ovules— I might put it, "why should we wonder at thousands of wasted male flowers, when we see such waste of flowers of all kind?"— I have, also, somewhere got some notes on the prodigious waste of insect life — by the sticky ^{scales on the buds} buds [sic], — by the thousands, & all uselessly killed.—