To Grant Allen 2 January 1882
Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | (Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.)
Jan 2d. 1882
My dear Sir
I thank you for sending me the Cornhill, as your article has interested me much.—1 Many years ago I thought it highly probable that petals were in all cases transformed stamens. I forget (excepting the water-lily) what made me think so; but I am sure that your evolutionary argument never occurred to me, as it is too striking & apparently valid ever to be forgotten.—2
I cannot help doubting about petals being naturally yellow: I speak only from vague memory, but I think that the filaments are generally white or almost white, & surely it is the filament which is developed into the petal.3 I remember some fine purple & bright yellow filaments, but these seemed to me to serve by adding colour to the whole flower. Is it not the pollen alone which renders most stamens yellow at a cursory glance? You may possibly like to hear that I have described cases (& others have been described) when an excessively poor soil has rendered a flower double. I can hardly doubt that any great change of conditions (which has so strong a tendency to cause sterility) tends to render a flower double.—4 Close interbreeding has a slight tendency in this direction, as has according Gärtner, a hybrid origin.—5
With many thanks for the pleasure which your article has given me, I remain | Yours sincerely | Ch. Darwin
I suppose that you know H. Müllers Alpen-Blumen, as it contains much about colour of flowers & orders of visting insects.6 I much doubt Wallace’s generalisation about much modified parts being splendidly coloured, except in so far that both have been acted on by the same cause, viz sexual selection.—7
That is an excellent case in the Voyage of the Vega, which I am reading, but have not yet got so far.8 In former times it wd. have been worth its weight in gold to me.—
Footnotes
Bibliography
Allen, Grant 1881b. The daisy’s pedigree. Cornhill Magazine 44: 168–81.
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.
Marginalia: Charles Darwin’s marginalia. Edited by Mario A. Di Gregorio with the assistance of Nicholas W. Gill. Vol. 1. New York and London: Garland Publishing. 1990.
Müller, Hermann. 1881a. Alpenblumen, ihre Befruchtung durch Insekten: und ihre Anpassungen an dieselben. Leipzig: W. Engelmann.
Nordenskiöld, Adolf Erik. 1881. The voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe. Translated by Alexander Leslie. 2 vols. London: Macmillan and Co.
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.
Shorter publications: Charles Darwin’s shorter publications, 1829–1883. Edited by John van Wyhe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2009.
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
Wallace, Alfred Russel. 1878a. Tropical nature, and other essays. London: Macmillan and Co.
Summary
Thanks GA for his article ["The daisy’s pedigree", Cornhill Mag. 44 (1881): 168–81].
The evolutionary argument that petals are transformed stamens is "striking and apparently valid". Doubts petals are naturally yellow.
Wallace’s "generalization about much modified parts being splendidly coloured" is also dubious except as both are caused by sexual selection.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-13594
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Charles Grant Blairfindie (Grant) Allen
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Cleveland Health Sciences Library (Robert M. Stecher collection)
- Physical description
- ALS 5pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13594,” accessed on 28 May 2023, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13594.xml