From J. D. Hooker 27 October 1881
Royal Gardens Kew
Oct 27/81.
Dear Darwin
The plants go tomorrow—all but the Euphorbiaceae anent which please let us know what sort of plants are wanted— There are no end of them, Herbs, Trees, Shrubs, evergreen, deciduous, succulents & thin leaved1
Dischidia Rafflesiana I have tried for 25 years to get for Kew— We had one little plant a year ago, that had life in it, but the Foreman would pot it on & killed it.2 I have seeds, just sown, but not yet germinated. You know of course Griffiths paper in Trans. Linn. Soc.3
I have long wished to experiment on it, but never shall now— Why should not Frank?— I will try again for young plants from Sincapore. whither we have just sent a good man. The common species, D. Bengalensis, has no pitchers & grows like an ordinary plant.4
I send our only plants of Drosophyllum— we can get others so do not “agitate yourself” about hurting it, & vivisect it at your sweet will.5
We go to Pitt Rivers from Saturday till Tuesday— I hate those big swell houses.6
Dyer returned last week. The Grays left Kew on Saturday & sailed yesterday.7
I have not seen the truculent Wiesner’s book.—8 & have a hopeless pile of literature to glance at on my table. The “intellectual activity” of the age is horrid.
I am finishing up Palmae for Gen. Plant,—the most difficult job I ever undertook—& perhaps the most unsatisfactory9
Ever aff yrs | J D Hooker
Footnotes
Bibliography
Bentham, George and Hooker, Joseph Dalton. 1862–83. Genera plantarum. Ad exemplaria imprimis in herbariis Kewensibus servata definita. 3 vols. in 7. London: A. Black [and others].
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Griffith, William. 1846. On the structure of the ascidia and stomata of Dischidia rafflesiana Wall. [Read 20 January 1846.] Transactions of the Linnean Society of London 20 (1846–7): 387–90.
Insectivorous plants. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1875.
Stearn, William T. 1956. Bentham and Hooker’s Genera plantarum: its history and dates of publication. Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History 3 (1953–60): 127–32.
Wiesner, Julius. 1881. Das Bewegungsvermögen der Pflanzen. Eine kritische Studie über das gleichnamige Werk von Charles Darwin nebst neuen Untersuchungen. Vienna: Alfred Hölder.
Summary
On plants CD requested.
Frank should work on Dischidia.
Work on palms.
Overloaded with reading.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-13435
- From
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Kew
- Source of text
- DAR 104: 170–1
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 13435,” accessed on 19 October 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13435.xml