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Darwin Correspondence Project

To W. T. Thiselton-Dyer   30 September 1875

Down | Beckenham

Sep 30. 75

My dear Dyer

I am very much obliged to you for writing to me about what you call trivial matters. I take in the Gard: Chronicle at present, but by an odd chance last number has failed.1 I have sent for it as I should be very sorry to miss seeing the account to which you refer, though Gärtner has described seminal hybrids in which the characters became dis-sociated with advancing age.2

I have put the curious seeds of the Geum on damp sand but I doubt much whether they will bury themselves. I am particularly obliged about the Schrankia wh is quite new to me, and if ever I go on with the subject I may perhaps be able to borrow the plant from Kew3

With many thanks | Yrs very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

Footnotes

In his letter of 28 September 1875, Thiselton-Dyer had given a reference to an article on hybrid aroids in Gardeners’ Chronicle, 25 September 1875, pp. 398–9.
See Variation 2d ed. 1: 424–5. CD cited Karl Friedrich von Gärtner’s Versuche und Beobachtungen über die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich (Experiments and observations on the production of hybrids in the plant kingdom; Gärtner 1849, pp. 549–50) on the subject of hybrids from seed that showed characteristics of one parent (rather than mixed characteristics) after a time.

Bibliography

Gärtner, Karl Friedrich von. 1849. Versuche und Beobachtungen über die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich. Mit Hinweisung auf die ähnlichen Erscheinungen im Thierreiche, ganz umgearbeitete und sehr vermehrte Ausgabe der von der Königlich holländischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Stuttgart: E. Schweizerbart.

Variation 2d ed.: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2d edition. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1875.

Summary

CD obliged about the Schrankia

and thanks WTT-D for details of last number of Gardeners’ Chronicle.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-10177
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
William Turner Thiselton-Dyer
Sent from
Down
Source of text
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Thiselton-Dyer, W.T., Letters from Charles Darwin 1873–81: 27–8)
Physical description
LS 3pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10177,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10177.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 23

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