To A. G. More 19 July [1861]1
2. Hesketh Crescent | Torquay
July 19th
My dear Sir
Very sincere thanks for the E. palustris which will be very useful, as I have 2 or 3 doubtful points to examine.—2 I am greatly obliged for your patience in watching the flowers;3 I know from experience it is tedious work. From analogy I shd. doubt moths being the visitants.—4 The irritability must be from what you say a false scent—yet a drop of Chloroform certainly caused first a slight movement forwards & then backward; but this, I now infer was mechanical from endosmose or exosmose.5 Were your observations made in sunshine? I can see it would be very difficult to detect any movement owing to great flexibility and elasticity of the part.—
Hearty thanks for the experiment of cutting off the distal portion of the Labellum;6 your friend could see whether the pods of these flowers swelled in course of few weeks as well as those of the unmutilated flowers; but it would be well to open them to look for seeds.—7 My notion is that the springing back of the elastic labellum leads the insects to crawl out of the upper part of the flower and not backwards over the labellum.— I am sure for removing the pollinia, the rostellum has to be brushed upwards and outwards.8
Again believe me | My dear Sir | Yours sincerely obliged | Charles Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
OED: The Oxford English dictionary. Being a corrected re-issue with an introduction, supplement and bibliography of a new English dictionary. Edited by James A. H. Murray, et al. 12 vols. and supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1970. A supplement to the Oxford English dictionary. 4 vols. Edited by R. W. Burchfield. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1972–86. The Oxford English dictionary. 2d edition. 20 vols. Prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1989. Oxford English dictionary additional series. 3 vols. Edited by John Simpson et al. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1993–7.
Orchids 2d ed.: The various contrivances by which orchids are fertilised by insects. By Charles Darwin. 2d edition, revised. London: John Murray. 1877.
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
Thanks for Epipactis palustris. Doubts moths are the visitants. Thanks for experiment.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-3213
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Alexander Goodman More
- Sent from
- Torquay
- Source of text
- Royal Irish Academy (A. G. More papers RIA MS 4 B 46)
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 3213,” accessed on 18 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3213.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 9