My dear M^r. Vines

I fear that you will be utterly tired of me & my roots.¹ I write now merely to say in answer to your last note that I did nothing except have the root dug up with large ball of earth, placed in water & I then gently washed them. I then cut off some of the finer rootlets which had perfect root-caps & observed them as transparent objects— I afterwards sometimes sliced them.— In the case of Euphorbia peplus, leaving the roots for some days in water makes no difference.—²

I have been observing the roots of Drosophyllum Lusitanicum in which, as I expected, weak C. of Ammonia (4 to 1000; 7 to 1000 is rather too strong) instead of causing the appearance of fine granular matter, great dark-coloured spheres & ovals & agglomerations of spheres appear & render the phenomenon very conspicuous.³ These masses slowly alter their shape & often coalesce. The rows of cells containing these spheres roughly alternate with transparent & empty rows of cells, & from these latter cells all the innumerable root-hairs arise.— But I observed what has astounded me, viz that in the loose or almost loose cells of the root-cap there were similar spheres. (I sh^d. add that the roots were examined before immersion in the C. of Ammonia). This looks as if the Ammonia caused only effete matter to run into these spheres or (in case of Euphorbia & Pelagonium) grains: if so the colourless cells bearing root-hairs must be more recent intercated cells.⁴ But I am utterly puzzled. If you make out what the grains consist of, I hope that you will allow me to quote your judgment—

A similar phenomenon may be observed on a poor scale in the roots of Urtica.—⁵

Heaven forgive me for scribbling at such length—

Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin

I remember observing brown matter in loose cells of root-cap in Eu. peplus.—