To Friedrich Hildebrand 28 July [1863]1
Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.
July 28th.
Dear and Respected Sir
Your paper on Orchids seems to me extremely curious & valuable, & has interested me greatly.2 But I grieve to say that I doubt whether I shall succeed in getting it read or published in England. Our Societies have a fixed rule not to allow a paper to be read, which will be published elsewhere.— I sent your paper to one of our best Journals: the Editor wrote to me that he thought it very valuable, but would not publish it because it was to appear in Bot. Zeitung.3 I have now sent it to another Journal & you may rely I will do what I can; but our Journals choose to publish original articles or to make their own abstracts & Reviews.—4 Your paper has explained much to me, that I could not understand. I sometimes saw the ovules & sometimes I could not, & in this latter case I attributed the fact to my want of experience & skill. I saw the ovules best in the hot-house Goodyera discolor from Brazil. Other facts, besides what you tell me, make me fearful that I have made a great mistake about Acropera and Catasetum; but I shall soon have some flowers of latter genus open in my own hot-house.—5
And now let me thank you for your very kind letter. I am extremely much pleased to hear that you have been looking at the manner of fertilisation of your native Orchids, & still more pleased to hear that you have been experimenting on Linum.6 I much hope that you may publish the results of these experiments; because I was told that the most eminent French Botanists in Paris said that my paper on Primula was the work of imagination, & that the case was so improbable they did not believe in my results.—7
With my thanks & sincere respect | I remain Dear Sir, | Yours very faithfully | Ch. Darwin
P.S. I have just heard that the Editor of the Annals & Mag. of N. History (which is a good periodical) will very gladly publish your “interesting paper”.— in the September number.8
Footnotes
Bibliography
Collected papers: The collected papers of Charles Darwin. Edited by Paul H. Barrett. 2 vols. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 1977.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
‘Dimorphic condition in Primula’: On the two forms, or dimorphic condition, in the species of Primula, and on their remarkable sexual relations. By Charles Darwin. [Read 21 November 1861.] Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society (Botany) 6 (1862): 77–96. [Collected papers 2: 45–63.]
Hildebrand, Friedrich. 1864. Experimente über den Dimorphismus von Linum perenne und Primula sinensis. Botanische Zeitung 22: 1–5.
‘Three forms of Lythrum salicaria’: On the sexual relations of the three forms of Lythrum salicaria. By Charles Darwin. [Read 16 June 1864.] Journal of the Linnean Society (Botany) 8 (1865): 169–96. [Collected papers 2: 106–31.]
Summary
Comments on FH’s paper ["Fruchtbildung der Orchideen", Bot. Ztg. 21 (1863): 329–33, 337–45]. Annals and Magazine of Natural History will publish it in September [3d ser. 12 (1863): 169–74].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-4255
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Friedrich Hermann Gustav (Friedrich) Hildebrand
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Courtesy of Eilo Hildebrand (photocopy) (Original, previously owned by Klaus Groove, sold by Venator and Hanstein, Cologne (dealers), 16 March 2018.)
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 4255,” accessed on 26 September 2022, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-4255.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 11
