Darwin, C. R. to Oliver, Daniel
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The plant CD's father called "flycatcher" was not Asclepias.
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Transcription
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My dear M
Thank you for your note— I do not think the plant can be an Asclepias: as far as my memory serves the flowers were very simple & I think the proboscis was caught between stamens & pistil. The minute white or very pale pink flowers were not in trusses or umbels. I have seen the plant fairly studded with captured flies. My Father called it the Fly-catcher. It died down in winter. The leaves were narrow.— stem thin, much branched smooth & I think slightly succulent. You did send me the curious account of Asclepias, which surprises me much, considering R. Browns paper on importance of insects in its fertilisation.— The conferva seems a good suggestion.—
Yours very sincerely | C. Darwin
In the Fly-catcher the orifice of corolla was small.— It is odd
that such a plant sh
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The note seems to be the `scrap' referred to in the preceding letter. - +
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Oliver's letter has not been found. - +
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CD had asked Oliver whether he could identify a plant that had grown in Robert Waring Darwin's garden (letter to Daniel Oliver, 16 November [1860]). - +
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Brown 1833. There is a lightly annotated copy of the paper in the Darwin Pamphlet Collection--CUL. - +
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William Jackson Hooker. The `Fly-catcher' was a species of dogbane, Apocynum androsaemifolium. See letter from Daniel Oliver, 23 November 1860.