To Gardeners’ Chronicle [before 29 December 1855]
As you have lately published such full and interesting details on the case of the long entombed Raspberry seeds,1 you may like to hear that a somewhat similar instance has been observed on the Continent. Gærtner (Versuche über die Bastarderzeugung, s. 157)2 states on the authority of Jouannot that seeds from the graves of ancient Gauls, of the date of the introduction of Christianity (probably at the time of Clodowig in the third or fourth century A.D.) germinated and produced Heliotropium vulgare, Centaurea cyanus, and Trifolium minimum. Gærtner gives, as reference, Froriep Notizen, B. XLIII., No. 946, p. 348. It seems that no known botanist looked to the correctness of these names. C. Darwin.
Footnotes
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.
Summary
Cites [from Gärtner’s Bastarderzeugung (1849), p. 157] a report that seeds from graves of ancient Gauls germinated.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-1802
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Gardeners’ Chronicle
- Sent from
- unstated
- Source of text
- Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, no. 52, 29 December 1855, p. 854
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1802,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1802.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 5