From Alfred William Bennett 22 April 1869
Lancaster Villa | York Road, Upper Holloway N.
April 22nd 1869
Sir
By this post I venture to send you a copy of a paper written for the “Linnean Society”, which illustrates an interesting fact connected with appliances for cross-fertilization in the structure of Parnassia palustris.1
I have been observing during the past winter the mode of fertilization in our common wild-flowers which habitually flower & bear seed in the winter season when we cannot suppose that any insect agency exists to produce cross-fertilization, such as Lanium album, Capsella Bursa-pastoris2 &c; & find that the pollen is almost invariably discharged in the bud before the opening of the flower, thus insuring self-fertilization; can you direct me to any previous observations on this subject?
Apologizing for the trouble, permit me to describe myself | yours very respectfully | Alfred W Bennett
C. Darwin Esq.
Footnotes
Bibliography
Bennett, Alfred William. 1868. Note on the structure and affinities of Parnassia palustris L. [Read 19 November 1868.] Proceedings of the Linnean Society (Botany) 11 (1871): 24–31.
Summary
Sends paper on mechanisms of cross-fertilisation in flowers ["Note on Parnassia palustris", J. Linn. Soc. Lond. (Bot.) 11 (1871): 24–31].
Studying how fertilisation takes place without the aid of insects in winter varieties.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-6710
- From
- Alfred William Bennett
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Upper Holloway
- Source of text
- DAR 160: 137
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 6710,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-6710.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 17