From A. R. Wallace 1 January 1881
Summary
ARW’s view of migration of plants from mountain to mountain gains support from case described in Nature [23 (1880): 125–6] by J. G. Baker. Identical species of alpine plants found in African mountains and Madagascar.
| Author: | Alfred Russel Wallace |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 1 Jan 1881 |
| Classmark: | DAR 271.6: a6 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-12964 |
Matches: 4 hits
- … J. G. Baker. Identical species of alpine plants found in African mountains and Madagascar. …
- … of Kew describes a number of the alpine plants of Madagascar as being identical species …
- … For Wallace’s views on the migration of alpine plants across mountain chains and the role …
- … Eocene periods were certainly warm, & these Alpine plants could hardly have migrated over …
To J. D. Hooker [3 May 1857]
Summary
JDH’s last letter demolishes woolly alpine plant theory.
Correlation of apetalous flowers and cold climate.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | [3 May 1857] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 196 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2088 |
To J. D. Hooker [2 May 1857]
Summary
JDH has shaved the hair off the alpine plant.
CD apologises for his criticism.
Apparent but false relations of plant structure to climate: heath-like foliage of all Cape of Good Hope plants.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | [2 May 1857] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 195 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2087 |
Matches: 7 hits
- … JDH has shaved the hair off the alpine plant. CD apologises for his criticism. Apparent …
- … Hooker You have shaved the hair off the alpine plants pretty effectually. — The case of …
- … talk coupled the two facts of woolly alpine plants & mammals. — How candidly & meekly you …
- … as compiler, for having put down that “alpine plants have large flowers,” & now perhaps I …
- … may write over these very words “alpine plants have small or apelatous flowers”! The most …
- … not find that in truly alpine species the proportion of woolly plants to be large. He is …
- … plant is more woolly when growing on mountains than on lowlands, & Moquin Tandon asserts that this change occurred with several species from Pyrenees when placed in the Botanic Garden at Toulouse: but Dr Hooker informs me that the Anthyllis vulneraria is glabrous in the Alps & woolly on hot dry banks: moreover Dr Hooker after tabulating some Alpine …
To J. D. Hooker [May 1846]
Summary
Interested in sterility of alpine plants in lowland and sterility of some plants in cultivation.
Curious to see Galapagos paper.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | [May 1846] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 61 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-971 |
Matches: 4 hits
- … Interested in sterility of alpine plants in lowland and sterility of some plants in …
- … that he says at Thoulouse every year alpine plants are brought into the Bot. Garden. — Do …
- … d . like to hear something about these alpine plants; Linnæus, I remember, says they are …
- … have in trying whether any alpine varieties of lowland plants have acquired any hereditary …
To J. D. Hooker [29 April 1857]
Summary
Curative power of hydropathy.
General hairiness of alpine plants questioned: direct environmental effect.
CD has long felt JDH is too hard on bad observers.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | [29 Apr 1857] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 194 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2084 |
Matches: 5 hits
- … of hydropathy. General hairiness of alpine plants questioned: direct environmental effect. …
- … have just alluded to the hairiness of alpine plants as an exception . The odoriferousness …
- … fear that I have looked at hairiness of Alpine plants as so generally acknowledged that I …
- … alpine flowers are strongly inclined to be white; & Linnæus saying that cold makes plants …
- … alpine species was generally admitted; I am sure I have seen it alluded to a score of times. Falconer was haranging on it the other day to me. Meyen or Gay or some such fellow (whom you would despise) I remember makes same remark on Chilian Cordillera plants. — …
To Asa Gray 24 November [1856]
Summary
Variability of naturalised plants.
Distribution of Arctic/alpine plant species.
Limits to the northern range of plants.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Asa Gray |
| Date: | 24 Nov [1856] |
| Classmark: | Archives of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University (5) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1999 |
To George Henry Kendrick Thwaites 7 February [1858]
Summary
Thanks GHKT for letter on plant acclimatisation and variation among alpine and lowland forms in Ceylon.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | George Henry Kendrick Thwaites |
| Date: | 7 Feb [1858] |
| Classmark: | American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.150) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2211 |
Matches: 5 hits
- … May 1857] . CD discussed the hairs on alpine plants in Natural selection , p. 283. CD had …
- … s ‘looking into’ the hairiness of alpine plants. This was a topic discussed by CD and …
- … GHKT for letter on plant acclimatisation and variation among alpine and lowland forms in …
- … plants to your climate, & on their acclimatisation on your different elevations. I am especially obliged for your remarks on the several species having alpine & …
- … alpine forms, but which Hooker has been looking into for me & disputes or rather overthrows. I was lately struck by a remark in U. States naturalist, namely that introduced or naturalised plants …
To Asa Gray 8 June [1855]
Summary
Suggests AG append ranges to the species in the new edition of his Manual.
Is interested in comparing the flora of U. S. with that of Britain and wishes to know the proportions to the whole of the great leading families and the numbers of species within genera. Would welcome information on which species AG considers to be "close" in the U. S.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Asa Gray |
| Date: | 8 June [1855] |
| Classmark: | Archives of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University (2) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1695 |
Matches: 4 hits
- … April [1855] . Gray’s comments on the alpine plants gave the exact geographic location for …
- … I can hardly tell you how much your list of Alpine plants has interested me, & I can now …
- … European. Would it not be well in the Alpine plants to append the very same additions …
- … in some degree picture to myself the plants of your alpine summits. The new Edit. of your …
From Asa Gray 4 November 1856
Summary
Outlines the ranges of northern U. S. species common to Europe. Hopes to investigate the resemblances between the floras of the north-eastern U. S. and western Europe. Discusses routes by which alpine plants appear to have reached U. S.
| Author: | Asa Gray |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 4 Nov 1856 |
| Classmark: | DAR 165: 95 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1982 |
Matches: 3 hits
- … and western Europe. Discusses routes by which alpine plants appear to have reached U. S. …
- … A considerable part of our alpine plants (more than our subalpine) are not known in our …
- … alpine species, &c which are very faulty, I find. The pages of Journal itself ought to be kept in extras, even when there is separate paging. I neglected to give proper directions—thinking little of the extra-copies. I have read with much instruction Hooker upon De Candolle’s book—think he is too hard at the end, both upon DC, & upon the subject, and getting dreadfully paradoxical to contend that Coniferæ are the highest style of plants . …
To J. D. Hooker 16 May [1866]
Summary
Glad to see Asa Gray’s letter.
Asks whether he may insert a sentence about Cape Verde alpine plants in new edition [4th] of Origin.
Fears "twaddle" may also be the word for his two chapters on cultivated plants. Asks for Crawfurd’s paper.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 16 May [1866] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115: 289, 289b |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-5091 |
To J. D. Hooker 5 August [1856]
Summary
Agrees that Lyell’s letters shed no new light on extensions issue. Continental extensions: opposes their being hypothesised all over world.
Commonality of alpine plants damns both extension and migration.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 5 Aug [1856] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 173 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1938 |
To William Jackson Hooker 12 March [1843]
Summary
Asks WJH to thank his son [J. D. Hooker, away on Antarctic survey] for his note. Has also read a letter JDH wrote to Lyell. Hopes JDH will publish a journal. If he publishes an Antarctic flora, CD will place his collection of South American alpine plants at his disposal.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | William Jackson Hooker |
| Date: | 12 Mar [1843] |
| Classmark: | Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Directors’ Correspondence: S. American letters 1838–44, 69: 40) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-664 |
To Asa Gray 1 January [1857]
Summary
Thanks AG for 2d part of "Statistics [of the flora of the northern U. S.", Am. J. Sci. 2d ser. 22 (1856): 204–32; 2d ser. 23 (1857): 62–84, 369–403].
Is glad AG concludes species of large genera are wide-ranging, but is "riled" that he thinks the line of connection of alpine plants is through Greenland. Mentions comparisons of ranges worth investigating.
Believes trees show a tendency toward separation of the sexes and wonders if U. S. species bear this out. Asks which genera are protean in U. S.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Asa Gray |
| Date: | 1 Jan [1857] |
| Classmark: | Archives of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University (7) |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2034 |
To J. D. Hooker 16 [May 1857]
Summary
Asks JDH’s opinion, and botanical evidence, on important law: parts that are highly developed in comparison to other allied species are very variable.
Interest in hairiness of alpine plants revived by reading A. Moquin-Tandon [Éléments de tératologie végétale (1841)]; correlation with dryness. CD seeks interpretation independent of direct environmental effect.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 16 [May 1857] |
| Classmark: | DAR 114: 197 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-2092 |
From J. D. Hooker [before 17 March 1855]
Summary
JDH criticises C. J. F. Bunbury’s paper on Madeira [J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 1 (1857): 1–35].
Absence of Ophrys on Madeira suggests to JDH a sequence in creation of groups.
Why are flightless insects common in desert?
Australian endemism.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | [before 17 Mar 1855] |
| Classmark: | DAR 104: 210–13 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-1644 |
Dawson, John William 1862a. Alpine and Arctic plants: a lecture delivered before the Young Men’s Christian Association of Montreal, February, 1862. Montreal.
From Hubert Airy 3 December 1872
Summary
Discusses works lent him by CD: Candolle, Kerner, Braun, Sachs, and CD’s own notes on relative positions of leaves. Plans paper on subject for Royal Society.
Just appointed medical inspector under local government board.
| Author: | Hubert Airy |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 3 Dec 1872 |
| Classmark: | DAR 159: 23 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-8657 |
From J. D. Hooker 26 July 1879
Summary
JDH criticises John Ball’s theory of origin of higher plants in Carboniferous highlands, where low carbon dioxide levels permitted survival.
| Author: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Addressee: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Date: | 26 July 1879 |
| Classmark: | DAR 104: 128–30 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-12173 |
To J. D. Hooker 15 [February 1865]
Summary
Hildebrand has sent copy of his paper on Pulmonaria in Botanische Zeitung.
How much should CD contribute to Falconer’s bust?
Oswald Heer on alpine and Arctic floras.
A. R. Wallace on geographical distribution in Malay Archipelago.
Lyell’s new edition of Elements. Wishes someone would do a book like it on botany.
| Author: | Charles Robert Darwin |
| Addressee: | Joseph Dalton Hooker |
| Date: | 15 [Feb 1865] |
| Classmark: | DAR 115: 261 |
| Letter no: | DCP-LETT-4772 |
| letter | (127) |
| people | (2) |
| bibliography | (1) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (64) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (27) |
| Gray, Asa | (5) |
| Müller, Hermann | (5) |
| Airy, Hubert | (2) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (63) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (35) |
| Gray, Asa | (8) |
| Thiselton-Dyer, W. T. | (3) |
| Lyell, Charles | (2) |
| Darwin, C. R. | (126) |
| Hooker, J. D. | (62) |
| Gray, Asa | (13) |
| Müller, Hermann | (5) |
| Thiselton-Dyer, W. T. | (4) |
| 1839 | (1) |
| 1843 | (5) |
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| 1857 | (8) |
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| 1860 | (5) |
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Featured in Commentary
Darwin in letters, 1856-1857: the 'Big Book'
Summary
In May 1856, Darwin began writing up his 'species sketch’ in earnest. During this period, his working life was completely dominated by the preparation of his 'Big Book', which was to be called Natural selection. Using letters are the main…
Matches: 1 hits
- … On 14 May 1856, Charles Darwin recorded in his journal that he ‘Began by Lyell’s advice writing …
