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Darwin Correspondence Project

To D. F. Nevill   15 January 1877

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.

Jan 15— 1877

Dear Lady Dorothy Nevill

I am much obliged for all the trouble which you have so kindly taken.— One of your references relates to the Apocyneæ catching Lepidoptera, & this is the most gratuitous case of cruelty known to me in a state of nature, for apparently such captures are of no use to the plant & assuredly not to the wretched butterfly or moth or fly.—1

Your Ladyship’s | Truly obliged | Ch. Darwin

Footnotes

No letter from Nevill with botanical references has been identified. In a letter to Thomas Brittain of 1 December 1876 (Correspondence vol. 24), CD mentioned that he had a plant of Apocynum androsaemifolium (fly-trap dogbane) in his hothouse and hoped to work out the reason for its ‘trap-like arrangement’ if it flowered. The V-shaped nectaries of the flower trap small flies and moths by their proboscises, while their proper pollinators, long-tongued butterflies, are able to avoid the trap.

Bibliography

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

Summary

Thanks DN for references.

The Apocyanaceae that catch Lepidoptera represent the most gratuitous case of cruelty in nature known to CD, since the captured butterfly is of no use to the plant.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-10789
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Dorothy Fanny Walpole/Dorothy Fanny Nevill
Sent from
Down
Source of text
Cleveland Health Sciences Library (Robert M. Stecher collection)
Physical description
ALS 1p

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10789,” accessed on 29 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10789.xml

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