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Insectivorous Plants

Summary

Sources|Discussion Questions|Experiment Plants that consume insects Darwin began his work with insectivorous plants in the mid 1860s, though his findings would not be published until 1875. In his autobiography Darwin reflected on the delay that…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … Questions | Experiment Plants that consume insects Darwin began his work …

Orchids

Summary

Why Orchids? Darwin  wrote in his Autobiography, ‘During the summer of 1839, and, I believe, during the previous summer, I was led to attend to the cross-fertilisation of flowers by the aid of insects, from having come to the conclusion in my…

Matches: 6 hits

  • … attend to the cross-fertilisation of flowers by the aid of insects, from having come to the …
  • … of Orchideæ & there is something about the visits of insects which quite puzzles me.— The Fly …
  • … by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of …
  • … of various orchids, Darwin had to infer the role of insects from the floral architecture. For this …
  • … examining the live plants, with reference to visits of insects, I believe their means of …
  • … all parts of the flower are coadapted for fertilisation by insects, & therefore the result of n. …

Orchids

Summary

Sources|Discussion Questions|Experiment A project to follow On the Origin of Species Darwin began to observe English orchids and collect specimens from abroad in the years immediately following the publication of On the Origin of Species. Examining…

Matches: 6 hits

  • … by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects . London: John Murray. …
  • … in the co-evolution of orchids and their pollinating insects. Letter 5637 - Alfred …
  • … at beauty of contrivances with respect to fertilisation by insects.  After reading a …
  • … by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects , the students found it useful to …
  • … by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects . The experiment is simple – all you …
  • … uses a pollen release mechanism that ejects pollinia onto insects as they enter the orchid. To …

From morphology to movement: observation and experiment

Summary

Darwin was a thoughtful observer of the natural world from an early age. Whether on a grand scale, as exemplified by his observations on geology, or a microscopic one, as shown by his early work on the eggs and larvae of tiny bryozoans, Darwin was…

Matches: 2 hits

  • … examining the  live  plants, with reference to visits of insects, I believe their means of …
  • … inner membrane was extremely delicate. He postulated that insects penetrated the inner membrane to …

Sexual selection

Summary

Although natural selection could explain the differences between species, Darwin realised that (other than in the reproductive organs themselves) it could not explain the often marked differences between the males and females of the same species.  So what…

Matches: 2 hits

  • … of secondary sexual characters, especially colour, in insects and birds , than sexual  selection. …
  • … of characteristics in a whole range of organisms, from insects to crustacea to mammals, that seemed …

Cross and self fertilisation

Summary

The effects of cross and self fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom, published on 10 November 1876, was the result of a decade-long project to provide evidence for Darwin’s belief that ‘‘Nature thus tells us, in the most emphatic manner, that she abhors…

Matches: 4 hits

  • … by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of …
  • … in England, but which are not properly visited by insects & so have been rarely crossed’ ( To …
  • … [1867] ). Darwin was beginning to suspect that the insects which could transfer pollen in sweet …
  • … of Darwin’s views on crossing, and his paper, ‘Are insects any material aid to plants in …

Insectivorous plants

Summary

Darwin’s work on insectivorous plants began by accident. While on holiday in the summer of 1860, staying with his wife’s relatives in Hartfield, Sussex, he went for long walks on the heathland and became curious about the large number of insects caught by…

Matches: 4 hits

  • … the heathland and became curious about the large number of insects caught by the common sundew ( …
  • … found that over half of the leaves had the remnants of dead insects adhering to them. The project …
  • … the upper surface of the Drosera leaf bend over to trap insects. He had been busy performing …
  • … celebrated the publication with a poem written from the insects’ point of view :   …

Darwin in letters, 1867: A civilised dispute

Summary

Charles Darwin’s major achievement in 1867 was the completion of his large work, The variation of animals and plants under domestication (Variation). The importance of Darwin’s network of correspondents becomes vividly apparent in his work on expression in…

Matches: 7 hits

  • … by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects  ( Orchids ). While Darwin …
  • … ), Darwin defended his position about colour in adult insects but turned the discussion to the role …
  • … his argument about the protective function of colour in both insects and birds. Darwin conceded that …
  • … community in order to gather more information on insects. Moreover, he was still able to engage in …
  • … charming observations on the fertilisation of Orchids by insects, as far as the Westfalian Flora …
  • … my attention in general to the fertilisation of flowers by insects.’ By the summer, Hermann was …
  • … by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects ( Orchids ). In October, …

Descent

Summary

There are more than five hundred letters associated with the research and writing of Darwin’s book, Descent of man and selection in relation to sex (Descent). They trace not only the tortuous route to eventual publication, but the development of Darwin’s…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … through the animal kingdom, reaching the ‘ end of Insects ’ by the end of February. He kept …

Darwin in letters, 1875: Pulling strings

Summary

‘I am getting sick of insectivorous plants’, Darwin confessed in January 1875. He had worked on the subject intermittently since 1859, and had been steadily engaged on a book manuscript for nine months; January also saw the conclusion of a bitter dispute…

Matches: 3 hits

  • … 6 July , ‘and it did us excellent service.’ The trapped insects were observed in the field, and …
  • … of eager students.’ The cunning ways in which plants lured insects to their death were described in …
  • … the poor creatures in the form of a poem: From the Insects to their friend, Charles Darwin …

Forms of flowers

Summary

Darwin’s book The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species, published in 1877, investigated the structural differences in the sexual organs of flowers of the same species. It drew on and expanded five articles Darwin had published on the…

Matches: 2 hits

  • … small grained pollen. I find that they require the action of insects to set them, & I never will …
  • … violets except V. tricolor are fertile only when visited by insects: I marked flowers visited by …

Dipsacus and Drosera: Frank’s favourite carnivores

Summary

In Autumn of 1875, Francis Darwin was busy researching aggregation in the tentacles of Drosera rotundifolia (F. Darwin 1876). This phenomenon occurs when coloured particles within either protoplasm or the fluid in the cell vacuole (the cell sap) cluster…

Matches: 5 hits

  • … the nutriment of the plant in dry seasons, and to prevent insects from creeping up to devour its …
  • … the precursor to slimy secretions capable of catching live insects. Still finishing his article on …
  • … a plant catching & feeding on solid particles of decaying insects. ’ Francis  consulted …
  • … believed that the leaves were ‘adapted for the capture of insects whose decaying remains are …
  • … into two lots, one half being starved and the other fed with insects or pieces of meat’, not unlike …

Was Darwin an ecologist?

Summary

One of the most fascinating aspects of Charles Darwin’s correspondence is the extent to which the experiments he performed at his home in Down, in the English county of Kent, seem to prefigure modern scientific work in ecology.

Matches: 3 hits

  • … by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of …
  • … as adaptive behaviour. Further, he argued that the insects that carried the pollen could, to some …
  • … by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of …

Women’s scientific participation

Summary

Observers | Fieldwork | Experimentation | Editors and critics | Assistants Darwin’s correspondence helps bring to light a community of women who participated, often actively and routinely, in the nineteenth-century scientific community. Here is a…

Matches: 6 hits

  • … work on butterflies and offers to observe birds, insects or plants on Darwin’s behalf. …
  • … Darwin observations made by her and her father of plants and insects. Men: Letter …
  • … Margaretta Hare Morris describes her work on fish and insects, undertaken on the shores of mountain …
  • … which she found near a bog. She also sends a selection of insects, which are carefully packed in a …
  • … 1855] Margaretta Hare Morris describes her work on insects, undertaken on the shores of …
  • … work on butterflies and offers to observe birds, insects or plants on Darwin’s behalf. …

Darwin's works in letters

Summary

For the 163rd anniversary of the publication of Origin, we've added a new page to our Works in letters section on Cross and self fertilisation. These complement our existing pages on the 'big book' before Origin, Origin itself, the…

Matches: 1 hits

  • … by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects (1862) Climbing plants …

Darwin’s study of the Cirripedia

Summary

Darwin’s work on barnacles, conducted between 1846 and 1854, has long posed problems for historians. Coming between his transmutation notebooks and the Origin of species, it has frequently been interpreted as a digression from Darwin’s species work. Yet…

Matches: 2 hits

  • … to buy . . . a simple microscope . . . & then make out insects scientifically by which I …
  • … & exceedingly interesting; I speak from experience, not in insects, but in most minute Crustaceæ …

The evolution of honeycomb

Summary

Honeycombs are natural engineering marvels, using the least possible amount of wax to provide the greatest amount of storage space, with the greatest possible structural stability. Darwin recognised that explaining the evolution of the honey-bee’s comb…

Matches: 5 hits

  • … bee cell was a favourite subject. The question of how little insects could solve correctly a design …
  • … of bees, and that, in the case of the hive bee, a number of insects worked together, first …
  • … whilst examining the nests of a vast number of Hymenopterous insects, he still believes those views …
  • … which apparently embellishes the productions of these insects, is rather the necessary result than …
  • … from simpler forms (the less organised, round cells of other insects), and explained their method of …

Darwin’s reading notebooks

Summary

In April 1838, Darwin began recording the titles of books he had read and the books he wished to read in Notebook C (Notebooks, pp. 319–28). In 1839, these lists were copied and continued in separate notebooks. The first of these reading notebooks (DAR 119…

Matches: 15 hits

  • … [Whitehead 1851]. Packard. A Guide to the Study of Insects 1868. U. States [Packard 1868–9] …
  • … 1781]. Ekmarck on migration [Ekmarck 1781]. Linn. on insects [Linnaeus 1781b]. Forsskahl on Flora of …
  • … 54 122 Sept. 25 Westwoods Modern Classification of Insects [Westwood 1839–40].— Oct …
  • … Economie des Celtes [Reynier 1818] Harris Treatise of Insects [T. W. Harris 1842] …
  • … Anon. 1835. Thoughts on the geographical distribution of insects.  Entomological Magazine  2: 44 …
  • … *128: 165 Baeckner, Michael A. 1781. On noxious insects. In Linnaeus, ed.,  Select …
  • … 17b Forsskahl, Jonas Gustav. 1781. The flora of insects. In Linnaeus, ed.,  Select …
  • … Thaddeus William. 1842.  A treatise on some of the   insects of New England, which are injurious …
  • …   to entomology; or, elements of the natural history of insects . 4 vols. London. [Darwin Library. …
  • … sur divers   sujets de l’histoire naturelle des insects, de géographie   ancienne et de …
  • … Academicæ . London.  119: 10a ——. 1781b. On insects, oration. In Linnaeus, ed.,  Select …
  • … Alpheus Spring. 1868–9.  Guide to the study of   insects . 10 pts. Salem, Mass. [Darwin Library. …
  • … An introduction to the   modern classification of insects . 2 vols. London. [Darwin Library.]  …
  • … 1854.  Insecta Maderensia; being   an account of the insects of the islands of the Madeiran   …
  • … Atlantidum; being an enumeration   of the Coleopterous insects of the Madeiras, Salvages, and   …

George Robert Waterhouse

Summary

George Waterhouse was born on 6 March 1810 in Somers Town, North London. His father was a solicitor’s clerk and an amateur lepidopterist. George was educated from 1821-24 at Koekelberg near Brussels. On his return he worked for a time as an apprentice to…

Matches: 2 hits

  • … won out. Waterhouse was particularly interested in insects and mammals. He was one of the …
  • … returned in 1836, Waterhouse was sent small mammals and insects from the voyage to describe. He …

Darwin in letters, 1869: Forward on all fronts

Summary

At the start of 1869, Darwin was hard at work making changes and additions for a fifth edition of  Origin. He may have resented the interruption to his work on sexual selection and human evolution, but he spent forty-six days on the task. Much of the…

Matches: 3 hits

  • … whom Darwin had asked to study the musical activities of insects, reported that one male field …
  • … by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects  ( Orchids ), Darwin decided to …
  • … where, in earlier years, he had energetically collected insects and studied geology: ‘I have been …
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