Oliver, Daniel to Darwin, C. R.
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The ovule of Primula is amphitropous or what J. Georg Agardh calls apotropo-amphitropous [see Theoria systematis plantarum (1858), tab. 24, fig. 5–6].
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Transcription
Royal Gardens Kew
14.IV.1863
My dear Sir
Let me beg you never to apologize. I feel so utterly unable to help you in any way unless it be about these little questions.
The ovule of Primula is amphitropal, or what Agardh
w
Here it is.
[DIAG HERE]
a. foramen or micropyle
b. Nucleus (Embr. sac.)
c. Chalaza
d. hilum
It is all but anatropal If the funicle were adnate quite down to
the micropyle then it w
Hofmeister says Primulaceae differ from the great majority of micropetalous plants in having 2 coats to their ovules. They have generally but 1 coat.
The inner is thick, the outer very thin. He says the exostome (opening through the
outer coat) ``liegt vom Endostom (open
[DIAG HERE]
What you say is very curious about pollen-tubes penetrating ovules. I do not remember any case of direct action except of course the normal place in Gymnosperms.
A good part of a notice of Welwitschia in N.H.R. I gave to the question of this Gymnospermy.— I have made drawings from the very interesting Primulas you kindly sent,—but they do not (seem to me to) furnish decisive evidence against Caspary. I am not sure as to direction taken by the tubes but from what I see in an ovary now before me of Primrose think they do not go the round-about way down the sides of the cavity—& up the placenta, but that they strike right upon the top of it near the side of the spear-process from its centre. It must surely be so.
[DIAG HERE]
We expect D
Ever very sincerely yours | D Oliver
I have re-opened this to say D
Yrs | D O
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- f1 4093.f1
See letter to Daniel Oliver, [12 April 1863]. - +
- f2 4093.f2
In his letter to Oliver of [12 April 1863], CD asked about the position of the ovule in Primula; he wondered if it was `amphitropal' or `anatropal'. Jacob Georg Agardh was professor of botany at the University of Lund, Sweden (SBL). The use of the term `apotropo-amphitropal' is not apparent in Agardh 1858, but see p. 331 and Tab. XXVII, fig. 1. - +
- f3 4093.f3
See letter to Daniel Oliver, [12 April 1863] and n. 2. - +
- f4 4093.f4
The reference is to Wilhelm Hofmeister and Hofmeister 1858, p. 199. Micropetalous: `having very small petals' (OED). - +
- f5 4093.f5
Hofmeister wrote that the exostome, the opening through the outer ovule coat, was `situated a distance from the endostome in the direction of the raphe; the pollen tube has to creep between both ovular membranes from the former to the latter' (Hofmeister 1858, p. 119). The endostome was the opening in the inner ovule coat. - +
- f6 4093.f6
CD had noted that pollen-tubes appeared to penetrate the ovule at the chalaza (see letter to Daniel Oliver, [12 April 1863]). See also letter to John Scott, 12 April [1863]. - +
- f7 4093.f7
[Oliver] 1863c, pp. 205--9, was a review of J. D. Hooker 1863a, and appeared in the April number of the Natural History Review. - +
- f8 4093.f8
See letter to Daniel Oliver, 28 March [1863]; CD and Oliver were interested in the morphology of the ovary and its placenta (see also letter to Daniel Oliver, 24--5 March [1863], and letter from Daniel Oliver [26 March [1863]). - +
- f9 4093.f9
Oliver refers to Caspary 1861 and Robert Caspary's notion of the relationship between the pistil and carpels (see letter from Daniel Oliver, [26 March 1863] and n. 3). - +
- f10 4093.f10
In his letter to Oliver of [12 April 1863], CD asked when Joseph Dalton Hooker would be returning from the Channel Islands (see n. 12, below); Oliver assisted Hooker in the herbarium at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where Hooker was the assistant director (R. Desmond 1994). - +
- f11 4093.f11
Oliver refers to CD's letter of [12 April 1863] in which he noted his observation of pollen-tubes penetrating the chalazal end of the ovule. - +
- f12 4093.f12
Oliver refers to Hooker's mother, Maria Hooker. Hooker was on a trip to Dorset and the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey (see letter from J. D. Hooker, 20 April 1863). - +
- f13 4093.f13
See nn. 6 and 8, above.