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Darwin Correspondence Project

From Mary Treat   15 May 1876

Green Cove Spring, Fla.

May 15, 1876.

Dear Mr. Darwin—

Your most welcome letter was forwarded me from Vineland.1 I am staying here longer than I had anticipated, in order to make good and abundant specimens of the water lily to which I refered in my last letter to you.2 It did not commence blooming until about the first of May. It seems that Audubon found and figured this yellow lily in his book of birds of the South, but Prof Sargent—Director of the Garden at Harvard—tells me that “botanists had generally considered it a poetic fancy of the author, rather than a true delineation of nature”, so it was not mentioned in any of our books of Botany.3 You may imagine how delighted they are at Harvard to get this lily. I shipped them a box of roots some time ago, and now word has come for 500 more roots. Dr. Gray has already sent a plant by mail to Dr. Hooker, and I will be pleased to send him pressed specimens if he would like.4

Yes, I received your book on “Insectivorous Plants”, and thought I had acknowledged its receipt.5 I was so fascinated with it that I sat up nearly all night before I could lay it down.

I think I have proven that the valve of Utricularia is sensitive, I will leave you to judge when you read the article. I have written to the Editor of the Magazine to forward you a copy, and it will probably reach you shortly after this letter.6

I saw a large number of mosquito larvae caught in the valve with their heads left sticking out, and I put a great many such specimens in alcohol intending to send them to you, but my departure for Florida was quite unexpected, and I left them behind. If you would like them I will send when I return to Vineland.— The drawing of the mosquito larva (and the way it was caught) was made by Prof. C. V. Riley, from specimens I sent him.7

I have been at work on Sarracenia variolaris, for some time past; it seems to me to be the most wonderful of all our insectivorous plants. My account of this will also be published in Harper’s Magazine.8

Dr. Gray asked me to publish the Sarracenia article in the American Naturalist, and you may wonder at my selecting a literary Magazine rather than a scientific one, but I am wholly dependent upon my own exertions, and must go where they pay best.

I start for the north tomorrow, it is very warm here—like July and August at the north.

Most sincerely yours, | Mary Treat.

Footnotes

Treat had mentioned in her letter of 3 April 1876 that she intended to leave Florida and return to Vineland, New Jersey, on 10 May 1876; she also mentioned having found a new species of water lily that had been overlooked by botanists.
The water lily, thought by Treat to be a distinct species and named Nymphaea lutea by her, had been depicted by John James Audubon with an American swan in his Birds of America (Audubon 1840–4, 6: 226). Charles Sprague Sargent was director of the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University.
Asa Gray also verified the holotype of Nymphaea lutea Treat (later found to be the same as N. flava, a synonym of N. mexicana); it is in the Gray Herbarium at Harvard, and is made up of specimens collected by Treat (Global plants, plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.specimen.gh00263250 (accessed 20 April 2015)).
See letter to Mary Treat, 21 April [1876]. Treat’s name is on CD’s presentation list for Insectivorous plants (see Correspondence vol. 23, Appendix IV).
Treat had sent CD a copy of her article in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine on the sensitivity of the valve in Utricularia (Treat 1876a), but it had not arrived when CD wrote Treat on 21 April. Henry Mills Alden was the editor of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine; he evidently sent the copy of Treat 1876a that is in DAR 226.2: 160–2.
Charles Valentine Riley’s drawing appeared as figure 8 in Treat 1876a.
Treat’s study of Sarracenia variolaris (a synonym of Sarracenia minor, the hooded pitcher-plant) was published as the second part of her article ‘Carnivorous plants of Florida’ in the October issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine (Treat 1876b, pp. 710–14).

Bibliography

Audubon, John James. 1840–4. The birds of America; from drawings made in the United States and their territories. 7 vols. New York: J. J. Audubon. Philadelphia: J. B. Chevalier.

Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.

Insectivorous plants. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1875.

Summary

Sends her article on Utricularia ["Is the valve of Utricularia sensitive?", Harper’s New Mon. Mag. 52 (1875): 382–7].

Proposes to write on Sarracenia ["Carnivorous plants of Florida", Harper’s New Mon. Mag. 53 (1876): 546–8, 710–14].

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-10508
From
Mary Lua Adelia (Mary) Davis/Mary Lua Adelia (Mary) Treat
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Green Cove Spring, Fla.
Source of text
DAR 178: 179
Physical description
ALS 4pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10508,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10508.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 24

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