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Darwin Correspondence Project

To W. T. Thiselton-Dyer   3 February 1879

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

Feb 3d 79

My dear Dyer

I will despatch the Darlingtonia tomorrow in middle of day by Rail. I have been glad to see so wonderful a plant, but make nothing of its apheliotropism: I suppose it requires bright sun & there is no chance of this with this confounded weather.1 I will give up all experiments until the Spring is well advanced for it is heart-breaking work now. I return at same time the Strephium.—2 I have still 2 plants of Bignonia capreolata—Smilax aspera & the Mutisia, which I will keep for better days.3

Hearty thanks | Yours very truly | Ch. Darwin

Frank is off tomorrow to Algiers to join George, as he wants some change, & we have persuaded him to go.—4

Footnotes

1
See letter to W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, 25 January [1879] and n. 4. CD was returning the Darlingtonia californica (California pitcher-plant) that Thiselton-Dyer had lent him. Insectivorous plants were among the few plants with apheliotropic, or at least not heliotropic, leaves. CD did not find the leaves and pitchers of this plant to be apheliotropic; see Movement in plants, p. 450 n.
2
In 1877, Thiselton-Dyer had sent CD a plant of the herbaceous bamboo Strephium floribundum (a synonym of Raddia brasiliensis); see Correspondence vol. 25, letter from W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, 16 July 1877. CD had observed the leaves to rise up vertically at night (DAR 209.14: 130–43; Movement in plants, pp. 391–2).
3
In 1878, CD had observed negative heliotropism (a term that he replaced with apheliotropism) in the tendrils of Bignonia capreolata plants from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; see Correspondence vol. 26, letter to W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, 19 July [1878], and Movement in plants, pp. 5 and 432–3. He had failed to acquire any specimens from a nursery so that he could return the plants to Kew (ibid., letter to W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, 30 August [1878]). CD had received plants of Smilax aspera var. maculata (rough bindweed) and Mutisia clematis from Kew on 16 December 1878 (Outwards book, Archives, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, p. 486).
4
Francis Darwin left Down on 4 February 1879 to join George Howard Darwin in Algiers for a month (Emma Darwin’s diary (DAR 242)).

Summary

Heliotropic movements. Is giving up experiments until the spring.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-11857
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
William Turner Thiselton-Dyer
Sent from
Down
Source of text
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Darwin: Letters to Thiselton-Dyer, 1873–81: ff. 158–9)
Physical description
ALS 3pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11857,” accessed on 18 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11857.xml

letter

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