From Thomas Rivers 26 April 1867
Bonks Hill, Sawbridgeworth.
April 26/67
My Dear Sir/
Pardon me for giving you trouble
Enclosed I send a root of a sort of wild oat grass, Bromus?, from the limestone hills of California this is No. 1—said to grow on all the hills in N.W. America. No. 2 is a root of a very peculiar & distinct variety of barley which came from No. 1, at which you will I have no doubt shake your head. The most curious fact is that several roots of barley all differing from our English barley came up in the same bed of oat grass.1 The transmutation of a genus seems almost incredible but I have seen so many changes that I have ceased to doubt strongly. I hope to be able to show you both barley & wheat from the root of grass enclosed No. 1**
again apologising for troubling you with the rather wild ideas of my old age | I am My Dr Sir | Yrs. ever truly | Thos. Rivers
**This kind of grass has been domesticated some ten years or so not here but in New South Wales where it was taken by a gold digger from California & brought thence by my brother2 who was much struck with its vigour in that dry climate
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Summary
Sends a root of a wild oat-grass from California and the root of a variety of barley that came from it. Several varieties of barley, all differing from English varieties, came up in the same bed of oat-grass. "The transmutation of a genus seems almost incredible" but TR has seen so many changes he has ceased to doubt strongly.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-5516
- From
- Thomas Rivers
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Sawbridgeworth
- Source of text
- DAR 176: 170
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 5516,” accessed on 18 September 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-5516.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 15