To Daniel Oliver 6 January [1875]1
Down, | Beckenham, Kent.
Jan 6th
My dear Prof. Oliver
You told me not to speak of troubling you, & by all that is good & bad I am taking you at your word.2 The case stands thus with Gentisea: we find bladders of a quite peculiar structure on the narrow leaves of G. ornata & africana, but not on those of G. filiformis; whereas we find ordinary bladders (like those of U. montana) on the rhizomes of filiformis.3 Now it seems to me very desirable to ascertain whether the same sp. of Gentisea bears two kinds of bladders. Could you therefore spare rhizomes of G. ornata or of G. africana—or more leaves of filiformis? It wd be an extraordinary fact if the same species produces two kinds of bladders, & yet I must think this probable, on the supposition that G. filiformis is closely allied to G. ornata & Africana; the latter two having very similar bladders on their leaves.—
Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Insectivorous plants. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1875.
Summary
CD’s observations [for Insectivorous plants] seem to indicate that the same species of Genlisea may bear two kinds of bladders, so he asks for rhizomes and leaves of three species to test this possibility.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-9803
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Daniel Oliver
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.)
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 9803,” accessed on 23 May 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-9803.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 23