To J. D. Hooker 6 September [1861]
Down
Sept 6th
My dear Hooker
One line to say that the magnificent Book arrived quite safe.1 I fear it will take me some little time to go through it.— Many thanks for names of Orchids. I am heartily glad to hear that Mrs Hooker is better & that you will sometime come to Down.—
If Oliver is at Kew remember me very kindly to him. Tell him I have got the Dionæas through his suggestion from Chichester & shall begin to observe tomorrow.2 By the way if Oliver is at Kew, will you ask him to be so kind as to tell me anything he can about origin or habitat of Primula ciliata & P. ciliata var. purpurata Is it a wild var? They differ oddly in one important respect & I am very curious to know what this var. is.3
I think that you will think that I have made out the meaning of Dimorphism in Primula, satisfactorily & a very odd case it is & has caused me much labour in artificial crossing.4
Ever yours | my dear Hooker | C. Darwin
Orchids are inexhaustible in contrivances: Dendrobium chrysanthemum was given me yesterday & it has such a splendid contrivance, so that if an insect fail in removing the pollinia by the sticky matter, the pollinia are pitched right over the rostellum & always alight on the stigma, so nicely adapted is the force of the spring.5
Footnotes
Bibliography
Bauer, Franz Andreas. 1830–8. Illustrations of orchidaceous plants … with notes and prefatory remarks by John Lindley. London.
Collected papers: The collected papers of Charles Darwin. Edited by Paul H. Barrett. 2 vols. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 1977.
Insectivorous plants. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1875.
Orchids: On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1862.
Summary
After much crossing, has worked out meaning of dimorphism in Primula.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-3248
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Joseph Dalton Hooker
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 115: 112
- Physical description
- ALS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 3248,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3248.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 9