To H. G. Bronn1 11 July 1862
Down Bromley Kent
July 11th.
Dear & Honoured Sir
I am very sorry to be troublesome, but I hope you will insert following note to “Mormodes”* p. 265. (7 lines from bottom) instead of the short one before sent.2
I have now examined perfect flowers of this orchid. It is the Cynoches ventricosum.3 I have erred to a certain extent in my conjectures on the action of the parts. The sensitive point lies in some part of the filament of the anther, between two little leaf-like appendages on the summit of the column. The movement of the pollinium is nearly the same as in Mormodes ignea, & the anther is torn off. But the power of ejection is more feeble; & the viscid surface of the disc after the movement projects at right angles to the anther. There can be no doubt that insects either alight on, or touch, the anther or end of the column, which hangs downwards, & then the disc is flirted out, & sticks probably to their heads; but the whole pollinium is not shot to a distance as in Catasetum. In about quarter of an hour the pedicel of the pollinium slowly straightens itself, as in the case of Mormodes ignea.
July 1862
p. 324 (3 lines from bottom) Orchids*
[asterisk]I now find that in several, perhaps in most of the Arethuseæ,—a tribe which as stated I had until lately no opportunity of examining,—the pollen-grains are simple, that is are not compounded of three or four granules.4
July 1862
Dear sir | Yours truly obliged | Ch. Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Collected papers: The collected papers of Charles Darwin. Edited by Paul H. Barrett. 2 vols. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 1977.
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
‘Fertilization of orchids’: Notes on the fertilization of orchids. By Charles Darwin. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 4th ser. 4 (1869): 141–59. [Collected papers 2: 138–56.]
Lindley, John. 1853. The vegetable kingdom; or, the structure, classification, and uses of plants, illustrated upon the natural system. 3d edition with corrections and additional genera. London: Bradbury & Evans.
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
Sends additional notes.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-3652
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Heinrich Georg Bronn
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Houghton Library, Harvard University (MS Lowell Autograph File 83)
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 3652,” accessed on 15 May 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3652.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 10