To John Scott 1 July 1876
Down, Beckenham.
July 1. 1876
My dear Sir,
I am much obliged to you for having sent me your two reports on the culture of the Poppy, & I have read them with much interest.1 Your observations seem very important and promising under a practical point of view; and I am glad to observe that you keep up that zeal which you have always showed. I have sown the seeds, from mere curiosity to see the plants; but from the spring being so cold I fear they will not do much good.2
I am now going to suggest a subject which if I had been a younger man I should certainly have investigated. No doubt you know that M. Jourdan splits up some of the species of Draba, Papaver, &c, each into more than a score of subspecies, and he asserts that they may be sown close together & never intercross, so that each keeps true to its kind by seed.3 Now if I understand rightly, the numerous vars of P. somniferum, which grow mingled in your fields, come true by seed with the exception of certain monstrous forms. How is this, and why do they not intercross, like the vars of cabbages carnations, &c in our gardens? I would suggest your castrating the unexpanded flowers of two or three vars, and by leaving them discover whether pollen is brought to them by insects. (What insects visit the flowers?). If they seed even to a moderate extent, I would then try the effects of mixing pollen of the same variety, but taken from a distinct plant (pray attend to this latter point,)4 with pollen from another variety, and then place the mixed pollen on the stigmas of the first variety without castrating the flowers. Sow the seeds and observe whether the seedlings are hybridised. If they are hybridised & yet you are able to raise pure vars from seed collected where many vars grow mingled together, then we should have evidence that forms which most botanists would certainly rank as mere varieties, are so far constituted like species, that they do not naturally intercross notwithstanding that pollen is carried from plant to plant by insects.
Wishing you all success in your valuable researches, & that you may keep your health, I remain | my dear Sir | Yours very faithfully | Charles Darwin
Footnotes
Bibliography
Correspondence: The correspondence of Charles Darwin. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt et al. 29 vols to date. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1985–.
Cross and self fertilisation: The effects of cross and self fertilisation in the vegetable kingdom. By Charles Darwin. London: John Murray. 1876.
Jordan, Alexis. 1860. Diagnoses d’espèces nouvelles ou méconnues pour servir de matériaux à une flore de France réformée. Annales de la Société Linnéenne de Lyon 7: 373–518.
Scott, John. 1874. Report on the experimental culture of the opium poppy with observations on its drug-yielding properties, and the more prevalent and serious forms of disease and injury to which the plant is subject for the season ending 15th April 1874. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press.
Variation: The variation of animals and plants under domestication. By Charles Darwin. 2 vols. London: John Murray. 1868.
Summary
CD has read the two reports on culture of poppies with interest and has planted seeds.
Suggests an experiment for evidence on whether plants, thought merely varieties, are like species and fail to intercross, despite insect pollination.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-10555
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- John Scott
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- American Philosophical Society (Mss.B.D25.)
- Physical description
- LS 4pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 10555,” accessed on 26 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-10555.xml
Also published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 24