To J. D. Hooker 25 November [1861]1
Down Bromley Kent
Nov. 25th
My dear Hooker.
I fear that there is no chance of an Acropera of either species or its ovarium still remaining on your plants. You will remember about the mouth of the stigmatic cavity being so small; & your own remark about the stigma not being viscid, which I noticed, but like an incredible ass did not look closely at.2 It occurred to me that the species of Acropera may be the males of some other orchids (like Catasetum & Myanthus) & I have just looked at an ovarium in spirits & I can see no trace of ovules! Unfortunately I cut the ovarium rather short when I put 3 flowers in spirits; & this makes me want a perfect ovarium, & a flower for fresh stigmatic tissue. I shd like to get over this opprobrium to my work on fertilisation; of course I must look to ovaria of other unfertilised orchids & see how plain ovules are: my memory makes me think that they are plain.—3 I have looked to Link on ducts in Orchids, & he trusted only to transverse sections & I am sure very falsely contradicts R. Brown.—4 What you said about Brown having observed the ducts running wrong in Habenaria is very likely (though he ought to have said so) but then he does apparently trust to position of ducts as far as he traced them by transverse sections. I hope in a day or two to attack Bonatea.—5
I was much pleased & interested by your remarks on the Primula case: but I cannot remember whether you gave any additional cases of dimorphism; if you did, please tell me again. A rather tall man with upturned eyebrows, told me that Weddell says that Cinchona presents the two forms.—6
I went to B. Mus. & saw a few of Bate’s “mimetic” butterflies & they are truly wonderful: He ought to have a coloured plate;7 I told him I would give £10 towards it, but I fear a coloured plate would cost much more.— What a pity that this man shd. have to work for his daily bread & have only 1 or 2 hours for science; but I do not see what can be done.8 He speaks with admiration of Wallace’s talents, energy & knowledge.—9
Here is a good joke; I saw an extract from Lecoq. Geograph. Bot. & ordered it & hoped that it was a good sized pamphlet & my God nine thick volumes have arrived!—10
My dear old Hooker | Your affect | C. Darwin
P.S. Do you (or Oliver) know whether in males of such plants, as the male of Lychnis dioica, whether there are rudimentary ovules in the ovarium?11
I shall be so glad to see the living Bolbophyllum rhizophora is this spelt right? it is not in Steudel12
Footnotes
Bibliography
Bates, Henry Walter. 1861. Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley. Lepidoptera: Heliconidæ. [Read 21 November 1861.] Transactions of the Linnean Society of London 23 (1860–2): 495–566.
Collected papers: The collected papers of Charles Darwin. Edited by Paul H. Barrett. 2 vols. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 1977.
Lecoq, Henri. 1854–8. Études sur la géographie botanique de l’Europe et en particulier sur la végétation du plateau central de la France. 9 vols. Paris: J. B. Baillière.
Link, Heinrich Friedrich. 1849. Bemerkungen u@⟨ber den Bau der Orchideen, besonders der Vandeen. Botanische Zeitung 7: 745–50.
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.
Weddell, Hugh Algernon. 1849. Histoire naturelle des quinquinas ou monographie du genre Cinchonasuivie d’une description du genre Cascarillaet de quelques autres plantes de la même tribu. Paris: V. Masson.
Woodcock, George. 1969. Henry Walter Bates, naturalist of the Amazons. London: Faber & Faber.
Summary
Acropera species may be males of other orchids.
Homologies of ducts in orchids.
Went to British Museum to see Bates’s mimetic butterflies.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-3329
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 115: 134
- Physical description
- ALS 5pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 3329,” accessed on 12 September 2023, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3329.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 9