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Darwin Correspondence Project

To Wilhelm Pfeffer   23 March 1879

Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.

Mar 23. 1879

Dear Sir,

I hope that you will excuse me for taking the liberty to trouble you with a question. I wish to make a list of so called sleeping plants, and I should consequently be very much obliged if you could inform me at about what angle either above or beneath the horizon the leaves of Siegesbeckia flexuosa, Wigandia rosea and Malva sp (p 29) stand during the night. These plants are mentioned by you in your Periodische Bewegungen (the latter at p 29) but you do not specify the position occupied by their leaves at night.1 I could not procure seeds of S. flexuosa, nor can I discover any such name;2 but I sowed seeds of S. orientalis3 and its leaves did not sleep, but this may have been owing to the plants not having been healthy, & I will sow more. If you have by chance observed, since the publication of your valuable work, other plants the leaves of which assume a vertical or nearly vertical position at night, I should be grateful for the information. In case you are so kind as to answer this letter I should be much obliged if you would write in Italian character as I do not read the German handwriting4

I remain with much respect | dear Sir, | Yours faithfully | Charles Darwin.

Footnotes

Siegesbeckia flexuosa is an unknown combination (‘Siegesbeckia’ is a common misspelling of ‘Sigesbeckia’, the genus of St Paul’s-wort); Wigandia rosea is an unknown combination, but CD probably meant W. urens (Caracus wigandia). Malva is the genus of mallows. Pfeffer had mentioned leaf movements in Siegesbeckia flexuosa, Wigandia urens, and Malva sp. in Die periodische Bewegungen der Blattorgane (The periodic movements of foliage organs; Pfeffer 1875, p. 29).
CD had tried unsuccessfully to acquire seeds or plants of Siegesbeckia flexuosa and Wigandia urens from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (see Correspondence vol. 26, letter to W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, 24 October [1878] and n. 7).
Sigesbeckia orientalis is common St Paul’s-wort.
Some of CD’s German correspondents used Kurrentschrift, a form of cursive writing that is the written counterpart of black-letter typefaces such as Fraktur. Most educated Germans at this time would be able to write in Roman cursive as well as Kurrentschrift, as the occasion demanded (e.g. species names would be written in Roman cursive).

Bibliography

Pfeffer, Wilhelm. 1875. Die periodische Bewegungen der Blattorgane. Leipzig: Verlag von Wilhelm Engelmann.

Summary

Seeks clarification of statements on sleep movements on p. 29 of WFPP’s work [Die periodischen Bewegungen der Blattorgane (1875)].

Letter details

Letter no.
DCP-LETT-11948
From
Charles Robert Darwin
To
Wilhelm Friedrich Philipp (Wilhelm) Pfeffer
Sent from
Down
Source of text
Tenri Central Library, Tenri University, Nara
Physical description
LS 4pp

Please cite as

Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 11948,” accessed on 29 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-11948.xml

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