skip to content
Home

Darwin Correspondence Project

From W. E. Darwin   21 June [1866]1

Southton

June 21

My Dear Father,

I send 2 females with outlines of my sketches, the 4 females outlined are from 4 different trees.2

I have all particulars down about them if you care for them.

I should it say it certainly was case of dimorphic become diœcious3

Broomfield says “dioecious said to be polygamous”.4

diagram

CD annotations

1.1 4 females] ‘flowers’ added pencil; erased
End of letter: ‘Primordial’5 pencil

Footnotes

1
The year is established by the relationship between this letter and the letter from W. E. Darwin, 20 June [1866].
2
William’s original sketches of Rhamnus cathartica, together with extensive notes on each specimen, are in DAR 186: 43.
4
William refers to the description of Rhamnus cathartica in Bromfield 1856, a flora of the Isle of Wight. The description reads: ‘dioecious, or sometimes, it is said, polygamous’ (Bromfield 1856, p. 107).

Bibliography

Bromfield, William Arnold. 1856. Flora Vectensis: being a systematic description of the phænogamous or flowering plants and ferns indigenous to the Isle of Wight. Edited by William Jackson Hooker and Thomas Bell Salter. London: William Pamplin.

Summary

"It [Rhamnus catharticus?] is certainly a case of dimorphic become dioecious."

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-5129
From
William Erasmus Darwin
To
Charles Robert Darwin
Sent from
Southampton
Source of text
DAR 109: A80
Physical description
AL 2pp inc †, sketch †

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 5129,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-5129.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 14

letter

Darwin Correspondence Project
darwin@lib.cam.ac.uk

© University of Cambridge 2022

Copyright declaration

Privacy policy

Website by Surface Impression

 

Study at Cambridge

About the University

Research at Cambridge