From Richard Trevor Clarke 25 November [1864]1
Dear Mr Darwin
I made a curious observation this season in the matter of Genus Gossypium while studying the plant to get up my little lecture affair— —2
G. Acuminatum was allowed its stand as species from the curious agglomeration of its seeds. I have long thought that the Sea Island ⟨two-thirds of line missing⟩ ⟨t⟩errible ⟨one-third of line missing⟩ G. Acum: than ⟨one or two words missing⟩ Barbadian type.3 and this season one of my Sea Island plants bore the seeds, adherent in pairs, which I enclose, on three different pods. A lobe of Acuminatum seed and a lobe of Sea Island are enclosed with this to show the similarity (wanting the adherence) between the two.
Please send me back the twin seeds I want to see if this habit will be reproduced or perhaps a further approximation induced.
Keep one specimen if you will
Very truly yrs | R Trevor Clarke
Dele the axial hautbois stem observation for the present.4
Welton Place | Near Daventry
Novr 25
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
Summary
Observations on Gossypium varieties.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4681
- From
- Richard Trevor Clarke
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Daventry
- Source of text
- DAR 161: 165
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp damaged
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4681,” accessed on 29 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4681.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 12