To Daniel Oliver 4 May [1864]1
Down, Bromley | Kent
May 4th
Dear Oliver
I am very much obliged to you for your kind present of Elementary Botany, so profusely & beautifully illustrated.2 When I am able to read a little more I am sure it will suit me excellently & I thank you sincerely for sending it. In the back numbers of the Nat. Hist. Rev. I have read some reviews which I am sure are by you, with extreme interest & with amazement at your bibliography.3 Try & remember that it is possible to kill yourself with work.
At any time when botanists congregate thickly, or you come across any one who has studied the order of Passifloræ, will you ask the assembly whether any member of the order climbs without the aid of tendrils i.e. spirally twines; I am really anxious to know; If I do not hear I shall understand no one knows.4 I am glad to say that my health is slowly & with oscillations steadily improving.
Believe me, dear Oliver | Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
‘Climbing plants’: On the movements and habits of climbing plants. By Charles Darwin. [Read 2 February 1865.] Journal of the Linnean Society (Botany) 9 (1867): 1–118.
Summary
Thanks for DO’s Lessons in elementary botany [1864].
Asks him to inquire whether there are any twining species of Passiflora.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4481
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Daniel Oliver
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 261.10: 48 (EH 88206031)
- Physical description
- LS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4481,” accessed on 28 May 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4481.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 12