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Darwin Correspondence Project

To J. D. Hooker   [30 and 31 December 1861]1

[Down]

Monday Evening

Will you ask Mr Gower to send me 2 or 3 flowers of Heterocentrum Mexicanum mentioned in Gardeners Chronicle in enclosed envelope,—as I am trying experiments of H. roseum, & the sight of another species might be of much use to me.—2

Ever yours | C. Darwin

if any other Melastomad with 8 anthers is in flower I shd be glad to see it.— Tuesday Morning Many thanks for note & foreign letter.—3 I am bad today with 2 of my Boys bad—4 But I shall indulge myself with a note to you some day soon.—

I should rather like to see Eulophia, but if you are not well or very busy do not send it—5 Mr G. could send the Heterocentron & cause you no trouble—

Footnotes

Dated by the relationship to the letter from J. D. Hooker, [29 December 1861]. In 1861, 30 December fell on a Monday.
William Hugh Gower was a foreman at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. A notice in the Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette, 28 December 1861, pp. 1137–8, recommended Heterocentron mexicanum as a good winter plant. CD was investigating dimorphism in Heterocentron (see letter to J. D. Hooker, 17 November [1861]).
See letter from J. D. Hooker, [29 December 1861]. The ‘foreign letter’ has not been found; it is possible that it was from Charles Victor Naudin (see letter from J. D. Hooker, [29 December 1861], CD annotations).
Emma Darwin recorded in her diary on 30 December 1861 that Francis and Horace Darwin were ‘feverish’.

Summary

Asks JDH to arrange for some melastomads to be sent to him.

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-3576
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Sent from
Down
Source of text
DAR 115: 83a
Physical description
ALS 2pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 3576,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3576.xml

Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 9

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