To W. T. Thiselton-Dyer 2 August [1878]1
Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.
August 2d
My dear Dyer
I thank you for a heap of things. The Arachis arrived in admirable condition, & I have been observing it ever since. I have no doubt the pointed gynophores cd. penetrate the ground without any aid; but they seem to be always in movement: I cd not resist dissecting one & what a curious structure it is!2 I also received a fine Pinus which has likewise been under observation: I have written to Messrs Barron to know what I am indebted to them.3 Pray thank Mr Smith for trouble he has kindly taken about the Pinus.—4
I had forgotten about Tropæolum & will raise some plants. Many thanks for Oxalis seeds; they are treasures to me.—5
Please tell Sir Joseph that I am particularly obliged for name of Trifolium, which by accident was sent me from Kew as T. resupinatum: it has removed a load off my mind, for I thought I must have been mad last year, the two Trifoliums behaved so differently.— If at end of month or later in autumn I could any how get seeds of true T. resupinatum, they wd be of great value to us, for Sachs has been suggesting a notion about bloom to Frank, which the leaves of T. resupinatum & of no other plant in world would perhaps solve.—6 This is my sole request at present.
Yours very truly | Ch. Darwin
I remember the roots, which you showed me at Kew, but forget whether they were positively or negatively heliotropic & what kind of plant it was.—7
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Darwin, Francis. 1886. On the relation between the ‘bloom’ on leaves and the distribution of the stomata. [Read 4 February 1886.] Journal of the Linnean Society (Botany) 22 (1885–6): 99–116.
Summary
Thanks for plants and seeds; requests for more to test Sachs’s notion on "bloom".
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-11637
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- William Turner Thiselton-Dyer
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Thiselton-Dyer, W. T., Letters from Charles Darwin 1873–81: 141–3)
- Physical description
- ALS 5pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11637,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11637.xml