From Hubert Airy 8 January 1874
Edensor. Kidbrook Grove. | Blackheath S.E.
8 Jany. 1874.
My dear Sir
Herewith I return the “American Naturalist” which you kindly lent me, with apologies for detaining it so long.
Professor Beal’s paper is very interesting.1 The varieties of leaf-order, which he has found in cones from the same tree or from different trees of the same species,2 do not surprise me, because I have found some thing of the same kind in other plants: for instance, out of 100 dandelion heads I found 4 or 5 with 10 and 16 spirals (instead of the normal 13 and 21).
Prof. Beal’s paper shows (what I had already found for myself) the incompleteness of my former theory, but it does not invalidate the soundness of the principles that I have sought to lay down, nor the correctness of my theory as applied to a wide range of instances.3
With best wishes for the New Year, | Believe me yours very sincerely | Hubert Airy
Charles Darwin Esq. M.A., F.R.S..
Footnotes
Bibliography
Airy, Hubert. 1873. On leaf-arrangement. Abstract. Communicated by Charles Darwin. [Read 27 February 1873.] Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 21 (1872–3): 176–9.
Airy, Hubert. 1874. On leaf-arrangement. Abstract. Communicated by Charles Darwin. [Read 30 April 1874.] Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 22 (1873–4): 298–307.
Beal, William James. 1873. Phyllotaxis of cones. American Naturalist 7: 449–53.
Summary
W. J. Beal’s paper ["Phyllotaxis of cones", Am. Nat. 7 (1873): 449–53] shows incompleteness of HA’s theory, but does not invalidate his basic principles on origin of leaf arrangement or the broad applicability of the theory.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-9232
- From
- Hubert Airy
- To
- Charles Robert Darwin
- Sent from
- Blackheath
- Source of text
- DAR 159: 28
- Physical description
- ALS 2pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 9232,” accessed on 18 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-9232.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 22