From Charles Cardale Babington 22 November 1856
St John’s College | Cambridge
22 Nov. 1856
Dear Darwin
I do not now remember to have ever gathered the Subularia otherwise than totally submersed.1 Koch (Syn. Fl. Germ.) describes the flowers as they appear when open above the water & so I think that we may fairly believe that it does flower above the water—at least sometimes.2 On thinking again, I strongly suspect that I have seen it out of water at the edges of Welsh lakes when they had run low. I cannot be quite sure either that I have or have not seen the aerial flowers.
I have not been able to find any anonymous book upon Pigeons in the University Library.3 The word is in the Catalogue and refers to a class that has been “broken up many years since” and no trace of the book is to be found. The officials think, after consulting all the probable records in their possession that the book is not now in the library. The Catalogue does not describe the book.
Yours truly | Charles C. Babington—
I have very seldom seen Limosella growing, but believe that it is an aerial flowerer.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Koch, Wilhelm Daniel Joseph. 1843–4. Synopsis florae Germanicae et Helveticae, exhibens stirpes phanerogamas rite cognitas, praemissa generum dispositione secundum classes et ordines systematis Linnaeani conscripta. 2d edition. 2 vols. Frankfurt: Fridericus Wilmans. Leipzig: Gebhardt & Reisland.
[Moore, John]. 1765. A treatise on domestic pigeons; comprehending all the different species known in England … Carefully compiled from the best of authors. To which is added, a most ample description of that celebrated and beatiful pigeon called the almond tumbler. London.
Natural selection: Charles Darwin’s Natural selection: being the second part of his big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Edited by R. C. Stauffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1975.
Summary
He is not sure whether he has seen Subularia flowering above the water, but thinks it probably is an aerial flowerer, at least sometimes.
Has been unable to find an anonymous book on pigeons in the University Library.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-1996
- From
- Charles Cardale Babington
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- St John’s College, Cambridge
- Source of text
- DAR 207: 15
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 1996,” accessed on 18 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-1996.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 6