To George Henry Kendrick Thwaites 7 February [1858]1
Down Bromley Kent
Feby. 7th
My dear Sir
I thank you heartily for your kind letter of Decr 28th & for all the information in your power on the resistance of plants to your climate, & on their acclimatisation on your different elevations.2
I am especially obliged for your remarks on the several species having alpine & lowland forms, & for what you mention about some having & some not having intermediate varieties.— I will quote this part of your note; for it was exactly a point on which I wanted information.3
You state that the latter ie lowland forms have much smaller flowers, & frequently more numerous; leaves, longer, narrower & less coriaceous. I copy this for there is often a mistake in “latters” & “formers”— If I do not hear to contrary, I will assume that this description does apply to the low-land forms.— I see you do not mention “hariness”,—a character usually given to alpine forms, but which Hooker has been looking into for me & disputes or rather overthrows.4
I was lately struck by a remark in U. States naturalist, namely that introduced or naturalised plants at first overrun the whole country, & then in some degree diminish in numbers.5 Do you know of anything like this in Ceylon, where you have so many naturalised plants?— I can see some likely causes of error in the foregoing remark, & yet the fact in itself seems probable.
How interesting it would be to cultivate some of the upland forms in the low country & trace probable changes in successive generations.—
With my very sincere thanks, Yours very truly | Ch. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
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.
Origin: On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1859.
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
Summary
Thanks GHKT for letter on plant acclimatisation and variation among alpine and lowland forms in Ceylon.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-2211
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- George Henry Kendrick Thwaites
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.150)
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 2211,” accessed on 18 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-2211.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 7