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To Francis Darwin   [c. 23 June 1878]1

My dear F.

I can send (packed in damp rag & surrounded by oil-silk) a twisted piece of Aristolochia sipho, of so-called Azorean Honeysuckle, & of common Honeysuckle.— Dependent branches of Scarlet Runn K. Bean become well twisted.— Give the order & they shall be sent.— I despatch to day Nature.—2 It is grand about Sachs “die merkwurdigste” &c &c3 Bless his soul. Bernard will turn into a Railway Engineer so absorbed is with booboos.—4

Dear old Backy | goodbye | C. D.

Prof. E. Tangl has send you a thickish pamphlet “Das Protoplasma der Erbse”5

Probably good— Shall I send it

Footnotes

1
The date is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter to W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, 23 June [1878].
2
Aristolochia sipho is Dutchman’s pipe; ‘so-called Azorean Honeysuckle’ is Bignonia capensis (a synonym of Tecoma capensis, Cape honeysuckle); common honeysuckle is Lonicera periclymenum; the scarlet runner-bean is Phaseolus multiflorus (a synonym of P. coccineus); the kidney bean is Phaseolus vulgaris. CD sent the weekly issues of the journal Nature regularly while Francis was in Würzburg (see letter to Francis Darwin, 7 [July 1878] and n. 5).
3
Francis Darwin had shown Julius Sachs his discovery of protoplasmic filaments on the common teasel (Dipsacus sylvestris), and Sachs had exclaimed, ‘Die merkwürdigsten Dinge’ (The most remarkable things; German); see letter to W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, 23 June [1878] and n. 4.
4
Francis’s baby son, Bernard Darwin; see letter to G. J. Romanes, 16 June [1878] and n. 3.
5
A copy of Eduard Tangl’s two-part essay Das Protoplasma der Erbse (The protoplasm of the pea; Tangl 1877–8) is in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection–CUL, marked ‘For Francis Darwin with compliments of the author’.

Bibliography

Tangl, Edward. 1877–8. Das Protoplasma der Erbse. Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften. Mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Klasse 76: 753–823; 78: 65–188.

Summary

Can send FD twisted branches of some climbing plants if he wishes.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-11564
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Francis Darwin
Sent from
Down
Source of text
DAR 211: 28
Physical description
ALS 2pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11564,” accessed on 18 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11564.xml

letter

Darwin Correspondence Project
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