Letter
to
Summary
Has given directions to save seeds of Lythrum hyssopifolium.
CD’s diagram of Lythrum salicaria is very remarkable. [See Collected papers 2: 107.]
Transcription
Royal Gardens Kew
13. IX. 1862
My dear Sir
I have given directions about saving seeds of Lythrum hyssopifolium.f1
Your Diagram of L. Salicaria is very remarkablef2 I think it will be a very serious labour & difficult too satisfactorily to settle such a complication.
I wonder did you ever think about Compositaef3
[DIAG HERE] &c.
Rolle is new to me,—the name I mean.—f4 Bolle is a botanist who has worked on Atlantic Island botany.f5
Pray excuse the dirty blot.— | Sincerely yours | Danl. Oliver.
Charles Darwin Esq
Footnotes
- f1
- At CD’s request, Oliver had sent him a number of fresh specimens of Lythrum with his letter of 4 September 1862, including the rare L. hyssopifolia, plants and seeds of which CD had attempted to obtain from several correspondents (see letter to C. C. Babington, 2 September [1862] and n. 3). CD had written again, in a letter that has not been found, apparently to ask Oliver to obtain seed of this species for him (see CD’s annotations to the letter from Daniel Oliver, 4 September 1862).
- f2
- CD’s letter has not been found; however, see CD’s diagrams of Lythrum salicaria in the letter to W. E. Darwin, [2--3 August 1862], and in the letter to Asa Gray, [3--]4 September [1862].
- f3
- Oliver refers to CD’s work on dimorphic and trimorphic plants. His diagrams represent cross-sections of the inflorescences of the Compositae, indicating the differences between the ray flowers and the disc flowers. From left to right they indicate: ray flowers bisexual, disc flowers bisexual; ray flowers female, disc flowers bisexual; ray flowers sterile, disc flowers bisexual; and ray flowers female, disc flowers male (all these combinations occur in Compositae).
- f4
- The German geologist and palaeontologist, Friedrich Rolle, had apparently sent CD a copy of the first part of his popular exposition of CD’s theory (Rolle 1863; see letter to Daniel Oliver, [17 September 1862] and n. 10).
- f5
- The German dendrologist and ornithologist, Carl August Bolle, had collected and identified plants in the Canary and Cape Verde islands (Taxonomic literature).