To Thomas Meehan 9 October 1874
Down. | Beckenham Kent.
Oct 9. 1874.
My dear Sir
I am much obliged for your kind letter & photograph.1 I am always glad to know the appearance of any one for whom I feel respect I was glad to receive sometime ago the reports &c. to which you refer.2 I feel doubts whether sudden & great variations often occur under nature, & still more whether they are often long propagated. I am glad that you are attending to colours of diœcious flowers, but it is well to remember that their colours may be as unimportant to them as those of a Gall, or indeed as the colour of an amethyst or ruby is to these gems.—3 Some 30 years ago I began to investigate the little purple flowers in the centre of the umbels of the carrot;—4 I suppose my memory is wrong but it tells me that these flowers are female, & I think that I once got a seed from one of them; but my memory may be quite wrong—5
I hope that you will continue your interesting researches & I remain Dear Sir. | Yours very faithfully | Ch. Darwin.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Forms of flowers: The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1877.
Meehan, Thomas. 1874. Change by gradual modification not the universal law. Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1873) pt B: 7–12.
Summary
Doubts whether sudden and great variations often occur.
Comments on colours of flowers.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-9672
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Thomas Meehan
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 146: 353
- Physical description
- C 1p
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 9672,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-9672.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 22