To Adolf Ernst 5 January 1880
Down, | Beckenham, Kent.
Jan 5. 1880
Dear Sir,
I have read your paper in ‘Nature’ with great interest & you have added a new family with heterostyled plants.1 Your plan of trying the pollen grains in abs: alcohol seems to me very good.2 But I have taken the liberty of writing to urge you to ascertain whether the illegitimate seedlings when legitimately fertilised are less fertile than the legitimate seedlings legitimately fertilised. I believe that you possess my ‘Forms of Flowers’ (if you do not I should be happy to send you a copy) and I would suggest your reading my experiments on the fertility of the illegitimate seedlings of Lythrum & Primula.3 The establishment of such infertility in other cases seems to me important as bearing on the sterility of hybrids. This opinion is not confined to me, for some years ago Fritz Müller in S. Brazil told me that he intended to repeat my experiments, but I suppose that other investigations interfered.4
Wishing you success in all your future researches, | I remain, dear Sir, | Yours faithfully | Charles Darwin
Footnotes
Summary
Has read AE’s paper in Nature [21 (1880): 217] on Melochia, a new family of heterostyled plants, and suggests some crosses to be carried out to determine the fertility of illegitimate seedlings.
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-12402
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Adolf Ernst
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- State Darwin Museum, Moscow (GDM KP OF 8972)
- Physical description
- LS 3pp
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12402,” accessed on 28 March 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12402.xml