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To Charles Lyell   12 June 1867

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12 June, 1867.

My dear Lyell

I am not sure whether you require an answer. I can only reiterate that you had better omit whole passage.1 I alluded to the case in 1st edit. of Origin, and struck it out afterwards.2 I can answer any question when we meet on Monday morning.3 It is not I think, odd that Herbert & Co were deceived, for nothing was then known on reciprocal dimorphism4

Yours affect. | C. Darwin.

Footnotes

1
Lyell’s letter has not been found. He had evidently written for further information or clarification following CD’s letter to him of 9 June [1867], concerning the variability of primroses and cowslips. In the tenth edition of Principles of geology, Lyell mentioned that CD had in the summer of 1867 completed experiments suggesting that the common oxlip was a hybrid between the primrose and the cowslip, and that the primrose and the cowslip were themselves distinct species (C. Lyell 1867–8, 2: 324). CD probably advised omitting mention of experiments suggesting that oxlips, cowslips, and primroses could be produced from the seed of a single plant (see n. 4, below).
2
In the fourth edition of Origin, CD omitted sentences giving the primrose and the cowslip as examples of doubtful species, and mentioning Karl Friedrich von Gärtner’s unsuccessful attempts to cross the primrose and the cowslip, that appeared in the first edition of Origin, pp. 49 and 247.
3
The Darwins visited London from 17 to 24 June 1867 (CD’s ‘Journal’ (Correspondence vol. 15, Appendix II)).
4
CD refers to William Herbert, and probably to John Stevens Henslow and Hewett Cottrell Watson. All three are cited in ‘Specific difference in Primula’, pp. 441–2, and Forms of flowers, pp. 60–1, as claiming to have produced cowslips, oxlips, and primroses from the seed of a single plant. In ‘Specific difference in Primula’, p. 441, CD wrote that ‘dimorphism not being formerly understood, the seed-bearing plants were in no instance protected from the visits of insects’.

Bibliography

Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.

Forms of flowers: The different forms of flowers on plants of the same species. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1877.

Lyell, Charles. 1867–8. Principles of geology or the modern changes of the earth and its inhabitants considered as illustrative of geology. 10th edition. 2 vols. London: John Murray.

Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.

‘Specific difference in Primula’: On the specific difference between Primula veris, Brit. Fl. (var. officinalis of Linn.), P. vulgaris, Brit. Fl. (var. acaulis, Linn.), and P. elatior, Jacq.; and on the hybrid nature of the common oxlip. With supplementary remarks on naturally produced hybrids in the genus Verbascum. By Charles Darwin. [Read 19 March 1868.] Journal of the Linnean Society (Botany) 10 (1869): 437–54.

Summary

CD probably advised omitting mention of experiments suggesting that oxlips, cowslips, and primroses could be produced from the seed of a single plant

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-5568F
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Charles Lyell, 1st baronet
Sent from
Down
Source of text
DAR 146: 326
Physical description
C

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 5568F,” accessed on 8 June 2023, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-5568F.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 15

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