From Thomas Meehan 28 April [1878]1
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania | Board of Agriculture | Harrisburg | Botanical Department | Thos. Meehan, Botanist. | Germantown | Philadelphia, P.a.
April 28 1877
Mr. Charles Darwin,
My Dear Sir,—
Though there may not be much that is new to you in Dr. Wood’s Lecture on Insectivorous plants, I am sure you will like to see it, and I have begged a copy for you which I send by mail with this today.2
I took occasion to note recently that plants did not always behave in one place as they do in others,—and I incidentally referred to your experience with Linum perenne, to illustrate my point.3 I did this by no means to antagonize your observations, but quite on the contrary, to help strengthen them with those who might see cases like mine, and suspect there might be some error in the original observation. I endeavored to show a good reason for seemingly differing experiences. My friend Dr. Gray seems to take it another way, and writes to me that I might at least have waited to see whether or not the plant in America is heterostyled before making the remark,—that perhaps the L. Lewisii is not after all L. sibirica or L. perenne, but entitled to distinctive rank.4 So far there is a good point in the suggestion that we should go over again and examine the matter, and I am sure I shall look into it with much pleasure. But as we had all of us come to the conclusion that they were identical, the doubt did not occur to me,— so that while I am glad of the suggestion to examine our form again, I think I may be pardoned for having referred to it as I did.
Though I cannot quite see just as you do, as to the deductions to be drawn from some of the observations,—I am so much in accord with so many of your views, and am so much indebted indeed to all of your labors, that I should be annoyed to be thought an “antagonist”.
With best respects and wishes, believe me dear Sir | Very truly Yours | Thomas Meehan
Footnotes
Bibliography
Baker, Herbert G. 1965. Charles Darwin and the perennial flax—a controversy and its implications. Huntia 2: 141–61.
Forms of flowers: The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1877.
Wood, Thomas Fanning. 1877. A paper on the insectivorous plants of the Wilmington regions. Daily Review (Wilmington, N.C.), 8 May 1877, p. [4].
Summary
Sends CD Dr Wood’s lecture on insectivorous plants.
Had no intention of antagonising CD with his observations on Linum; was anxious to account for its apparently different behaviour.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-10944
- From
- Thomas Meehan
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Germantown, Pa.
- Source of text
- DAR 171: 111
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10944,” accessed on 23 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10944.xml