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Darwin Correspondence Project

To Hermann Müller   20 September 1878

Down, Beckenham, Kent

Sept. 20. 1878

My dear Sir

— — — — — I am working away on some points in vegetable physiology; but though they interest me and my son, yet they have none of the fascination which the fertilisation of flowers possesses.1 Nothing in my life has ever interested me more than the fertilisation of such plants as Primula and Lythrum, or again Anacamptis or Listera.2

With the most sincere respect | Yours very faithfully | Charles Darwin

Footnotes

CD and Francis Darwin were making observations on movement in plants and bloom (CD’s ‘Journal’ (Appendix II)).
CD’s earlier work on the fertilisation of plants had been collected and updated in Forms of flowers, published in 1877; see also Cross and self fertilisation, a second edition of which appeared in 1878, and Orchids, a second edition of which appeared in 1877. Listera and Anacamptis are genera of orchids.

Bibliography

Cross and self fertilisation: The effects of cross and self fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1876.

Forms of flowers: The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1877.

ML: More letters of Charles Darwin: a record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished letters. Edited by Francis Darwin and Albert Charles Seward. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1903.

Orchids: On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1862.

Summary

Writing on vegetable physiology.

Nothing in CD’s life has ever interested him more than the fertilisation of such plants as Primula and Lythrum.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-11698
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Heinrich Ludwig Hermann (Hermann) Müller
Sent from
Down
Source of text
DAR 146: 439
Physical description
C 1p inc

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11698,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11698.xml

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