From Maxwell Tylden Masters 28 March 1867
Gardeners’ Chronicle | & Agricultural Gazette Office, | 41, Wellington Street, Strand, W.C.
March 28 1867
My dear Sir
I venture to send you the enclosed though I fear I may add to your vexations by so doing—1 You will see at the end a reference to yourself—2 The lip was smashed so I cut it away— the pollen masses I placed on the stigmas—3
—I hope you received your copy of the Congress Report and also Dr. Hildebrand’s— if you have not already forwarded the latter or have any inconvenience in so doing I can forward it from hence without troubling you.4
Faithfully yrs | Maxwell T. Masters
[Enclosure]
As the sexes of Orchids form a subject of considerable interest, I beg to forward you the accompanying specimens of Cypripedium insigne. Of this I have several plants, all however originally derived from the same piece, but in spite of numerous attempts, I have uniformly failed to fertilise the flowers. The seed-vessel swells and the flower fades as usual, but no seed is produced. It appears to me that my plant produces a male flower only, and is not hermaphrodite. Have any others of your correspondents made a similar observation? I enclose a flower of Cypripedium insigne and two barren seed-vessels, to which the pollen of C. barbatum and C. venustum was applied this year.5 To prove that the pollen masses of the plant in question are good, I send also a seed-vessel of C. barbatum, fertilised with the pollen of one of the same flowers of C. insigne, and which is full of seeds. A.D.B.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Collected papers: The collected papers of Charles Darwin. Edited by Paul H. Barrett. 2 vols. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 1977.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
DNB: Dictionary of national biography. Edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. 63 vols. and 2 supplements (6 vols.). London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1912. Dictionary of national biography 1912–90. Edited by H. W. C. Davis et al. 9 vols. London: Oxford University Press. 1927–96.
International Horticultural Exhibition 1866: International Horticultural Exhibition and Botanical Congress, held in London, from May 22nd to May 31st, 1866. Report of Proceedings. London: Truscott, Son, & Simmons.
Orchids: On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1862.
Summary
Forwards some plant specimens to CD for his comments.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-5467
- From
- Maxwell Tylden Masters
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Gardeners’ Chronicle
- Source of text
- DAR 96: 34–5, Gardeners’ Chronicle, 6 April 1867, p. 350.
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 5467,” accessed on
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 15
