To Arthur Rawson 6 June [1863]1
Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.
June 6
Dear Sir
I am very much obliged to you for your kindness in sending me the Cypripedium. It is a plant which I have never seen & therefore have been glad to examine it.2
The contrivance by which insects, after they have entered the labellum by the mouth, are forced to crawl out by one of the small lateral passages & thus get smeared with the viscid pollen, is very curious; it is exactly the same principle on which traps are made to catch insects in kitchen, namely the edge of the mouth, or large opening into the labellum being bent inwards so that the insect instead of getting out falls back.3
With my best thanks, believe me dear Sir yours faithfully | Charles Darwin
Footnotes
Summary
CD thanks the sender of a Cypripedium. He finds its pollination contrivances interesting.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-5563
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Arthur Rawson
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.)
- Physical description
- LS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 5563,” accessed on 20 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-5563.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 18 (Supplement)