To J. D. Hooker 23 July [1874]1
Down, | Beckenham, Kent.
July 23d
My dear Hooker.
Many thanks your very interesting & nice letter. Do just what you like with any or all of my materials.2 From the oldest primeval times it has been a delight to me to tell you what I have been doing, & have always felt as if the case was then as good as published; for I care for your interest on any point more than for that of the rest of the world.— Cephalotus seems as horrid a puzzle as Utricularia:3 as soon as my month’s holiday is over I shall grapple with it again, but God knows whether I shall succeed: I have thought of many dodges too long to detail & too visionary; but if any succeed I will of course tell you. Does rain accumulate in pitchers? If I were you, I would try in despair the effect of quasi-gnawing a bit of the inside of pitcher as by an insect: (mem. the gnawing of the labellum in some of the big Orchids)4 Nepenthes will turn out a great job, if the pitchers of different sp. act differently; & this does not seem very improbable, considering vast difference of Pinguicula & Utricularia.—5
I certainly shd like to see the great Drosera; but it is impossible as I leave early on Saturday morning for a month.6 The extreme outer tentacles become torpid before the others. If you might cut off a leaf, I wd insert it in weak infusion of raw meat; or perhaps you cd. do that to a leaf on the plant. If the structure is like that of D. rotundifolia it is marvellous that the functions shd. be different: I have found very little difference in any of the species examined by me, & almost confined to the manner of inflection of the blade of the leaf.7
Hereafter I shall be very glad to hear about the seeds in Nepenthes; look to state of any seedlings which grow. Your paper on N. will manifestly be too great & long an affair for my book & will well deserve a place in Tr. R. Soc.8
Ever yours affect | C. Darwin
Have you scratched with bristle for 10m inside of pitcher of Cephalotus? to see if excites secretion.—
If you get other sp. of Utricularia, will you keep it alive for me at Kew, & in any case preserve a few bladders in alcohol—& water.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Orchids 2d ed.: The various contrivances by which orchids are fertilised by insects. By Charles Darwin. 2d edition, revised. London: John Murray. 1877.
Summary
JDH should do as he likes with insectivorous plant materials.
He has always thought telling JDH what he has been doing was as good as publishing.
Cephalotus seems as horrid a puzzle as Utricularia.
Nepenthes will turn out a great job if the pitchers of different species act differently. JDH’s paper on Nepenthes [Rep. BAAS 44 (1874): 102–16] is too long for CD’s book. Well deserves a place in Philosophical Transactions.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-9560
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 95: 328–31
- Physical description
- ALS 6pp inc
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 9560,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-9560.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 22