To Asa Gray 24 October 1879
Down, | Beckenham, Kent. | (Railway Station | Orpington. S.E.R.)
Oct 24th/79
My dear Gray
I have procured & been reading your new Edit. of your Text-Book of Botany, (which has been greatly developed since old times)1 & I find at p. 21, 22, a curious account of some seedlings. For the bare possibility of you being able to send me a few seeds of the 2 kinds which I want most, I have written their names down on the next page.— I have procured Delphinium nudicaule from a nurseryman.2 I have attended somewhat to the manner in which seedlings break through the ground, & it is for this object that I want these seeds.
I have written a rather big book,—more is the pity—on the movements of plants, & I am now just beginning to go over the M.S. for the second time, which is a horrid bore.3
I hope that Mrs4 & you are both quite well.—
Ever yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin
De Vries has been working at the tendrils of Cucurbitaceæ sent by you.—5
seeds wanted
Ipomœa leptophylla6
Megarrhiza californica7
Footnotes
Bibliography
Gray, Asa. 1858a. Introduction to structural and systematic botany, and vegetable physiology, being a fifth and revised edition of the botanical text-book. New York: Ivison & Phinney.
Gray, Asa. 1879. Gray’s botanical text-book. Vol. I. Structural botany or organography on the basis of morphology. To which is added the principles of taxonomy and phytography, and a glossary of botanical terms. 6th edition. New York and Chicago: Ivison, Blakeman, and Company.
Summary
Requests seeds of Ipomoea and Megarrhiza for observations on seedling growth.
Is rereading MS of Movement in plants.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-12269
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Asa Gray
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- Archives of the Gray Herbarium, Harvard University (125)
- Physical description
- ALS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12269,” accessed on 19 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12269.xml
