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 w^d. have been worth its weight in gold to me.—