To A. S. Wilson 8 January 1880
Down
Jan. 8. 1880
My dear Sir
I am much obliged for your interesting letter. I am glad that you have solved the puzzle of the outer seeds.—1 I am very unwilling to believe in Nature blundering, and I imagined that the rootlets, which so clearly manage to escape from between the glumes, perhaps afterwards entered, consumed and digested these seeds. I therefore looked twice at ears which had been in the ground for several months, but could not detect the entrance of any radicles. I was, however, astonished at the whiteness of these seeds when cut into two, yet never thought about their being alive and capable of subsequent germination!
I quite agree with you about the great improbability of sudden transformations, | My dear Sir, | Yours very sincerely | Ch. Darwin.
P.S. I have ceased to take in Gardeners Chronicle, from want of time to read it. Will you therefore send me a post card when you know number of Journal containing your Report.2
Footnotes
Bibliography
Wilson, Alexander Stephen. 1880. Kubanka and Saxonka wheat. Gardeners’ Chronicle, 24 January 1880, p. 108; 7 February 1880, pp. 172–3.
Summary
Glad ASW has solved puzzle of outer seeds.
Quite agrees about great improbability of sudden transformations.
Asks for copy of report from Gardeners’ Chronicle [see 12404].
Letter details
- Letter no.
- DCP-LETT-12411
- From
- Charles Robert Darwin
- To
- Alexander Stephen Wilson
- Sent from
- Down
- Source of text
- DAR 148: 369
- Physical description
- C 1p
Please cite as
Darwin Correspondence Project, “Letter no. 12411,” accessed on 24 April 2024, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-12411.xml