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Darwin Correspondence Project

From Mary Treat   3 April 1876

Green Cove Spring, Florida,

Apr. 3, 1876.

Dear Mr. Darwin—

I came to Florida in November last, and have been working on the carnivorous plants here. With this letter I send you pressed specimens of the Pinguiculas which I have worked with. I shall soon publish my observations, and will send them to you in print.1 I sent you Harper’s Magazine for February containing my article entitled “Is the Valve of the Utricularia sensitive”?2

I think I have found two distinct species of Utricularia since I came here, one growing in a warm sulphur spring in beautifully clear water, this species has no antennae, but it is not at all like our U. purpurea, which you have noticed in the article I sent you.3

But my greatest find has been a new water lily. It is really astonishing how it could have escaped the botanists. What have they been doing to let me come down here and find this beautiful lily? I enclose specimen of leaf. There are acres of it in extent growing in the bays and coves of the St. John’s river.4 It is one of the most beautiful plants I ever beheld, and when I first saw it my heart fairly stood still. It cannot be a variety of Nymphaea, but a distinct species. The character of the plant is unlike our Nymphæa, and it produces large double yellow flowers. I have sent the plant to Dr. Gray,5 and asked him to give me directions to send it to Dr. Hooker.6 I sent it to Dr. Gray a week ago, but it takes so long for letters and packages to go from one end of the Union to the other, that I grow impatient and write to you before hearing from him. If you are in communication with Dr. Hooker, please tell him about this water lily. I have transplanted it, and know that it will stand pretty rough treatment. It sends out runners, and even the little plants on the ends of the runners grow readily.

I have just met one of your countrymen and his charming wife—Mr. and Mrs. White7 who are traveling in this country. Mr. White is a member of Parliament and has traveled with Dr. Hooker. Mrs. W. is a good botanist, and is drawing and painting our Flora. I accompanied her in a row boat to this bed of water lilies, and she is to paint it for me.

Dr. Gray thinks that I have also found a distinct species of Amaryllis, it blooms some two months earlier than our A. atamasco, and the leaves are much longer and broader. It commenced blooming early in January and the leaves and flower-scapes are now dying down, and the bulbs are ripe, whereas our A. atamasco is now in full flower.8

I remain here until about the 10th of May, when I shall return to to Vineland, N. Jersey. | Most sincerely yours, | Mary Treat,

P.S. As soon as I can press good specimens of the entire plant of the water lily—flowers roots & runners, I will send to you & Dr. Hooker if you desire—

P.S. You will not get a very good idea of the beauty of the leaf of the water lily from the pressed specimens, when fresh, it is very glossy, and finely blotched with red. I enclose some of the larger leaves in the package with the Pinguiculas.9

M.T.

CD annotations

1.4 I ... sensitive”? 1.5] scored red crayon

Footnotes

The specimens have not been found. Treat recorded her observations of carnivorous plants in Florida in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (Treat 1876b); see also Treat 1885, chapter 10. Pinguicula is the genus of butterworts.
An annotated copy of Treat’s article (Treat 1876a) is in DAR 226.2: 160–2. Utricularia is the genus of bladderworts.
The ‘distinct species’ have not been identified. Treat described Utricularia purpurea (eastern purple bladderwort) as different from all other species she had examined and as having no antennae in Treat 1876a, p. 384. This species was not discussed in Insectivorous plants.
Treat named the water lily Nymphaea lutea but later noted it was the same as N. flava (a synonym of N. mexicana). It had been depicted (with an American swan) in John James Audubon’s Birds of America (Audubon 1840–4, 6: facing 226) but was unknown to botanists (see Treat 1877 for Treat’s account of her discovery and her description of the plant). The leaf has not been found. St Johns River runs almost the entire length of eastern Florida; Treat traced the plant from Green Cove Spring thirty-five miles south to Jacksonville (ibid., p. 366).
James White (MP for Brighton from 1860 until 1874), and his wife Mary.
Gray concluded that this was a new form of Amaryllis atamasco (now Zephyranthes atamasco, the rain lily); see Treat 1877, pp. 367–8.
The leaves have not been found.

Bibliography

Audubon, John James. 1840–4. The birds of America; from drawings made in the United States and their territories. 7 vols. New York: J. J. Audubon. Philadelphia: J. B. Chevalier.

Insectivorous plants. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1875.

Treat, Mary. 1877. Home observations in Florida. Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 55: 365–8.

Treat, Mary. 1885. Home studies in nature. New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago: American Book Company.

Summary

Encloses Pinguicula specimens.

Believes she has found a new species of water-lily.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-10439
From
Mary Lua Adelia (Mary) Davis/Mary Lua Adelia (Mary) Treat
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Green Cove Spring, Fla.
Source of text
DAR 178: 178
Physical description
ALS 5pp †

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10439,” accessed on 19 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10439.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 24

letter